The State of Investment in Scotland

Investment into Scottish companies grew 108% from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025. We recently released our quarterly report, The State of UK Investment, and Scotland had some stand-out figures. With this in mind, we’re going to take a deeper look at investment into Scotland so far this year.

In this piece, we’ll examine what’s driving that growth. From the industries attracting the most capital, to the growth stage of companies receiving funding, and the gender split of founding teams — we break down the key trends shaping Scotland’s investment landscape in 2025. Plus, we spotlight the biggest deals this year so far, and consider what might be on the horizon for the rest of the year.

Scotland’s current investment landscape: how did Q1 2025 look?

Scotland has seen a strong start to 2025 in terms of investment, with a significant surge in funding despite a slight dip in deal volume. While the number of deals recorded in Q1 2025 declined by 6% compared to the previous quarter, the total value of investment into Scottish companies soared by an impressive 108%. Overall, Scotland captured 7% of all deals completed across the UK in Q1 2025.

Since the beginning of 2025 until 2 May 2025, when the data for this article was collected, Scottish companies have had £211m invested across 99 equity funding rounds. Let’s take a closer look at those investments.

Scotland’s biggest industries

So far in 2025, 99 Scottish companies have been through an equity funding round. Across those companies, 26% were in the application software industry, the proportion of any industry. However, looking at all UK funded companies in the same time span, application software represents 48% of the total, indicating that Scotland has a wider range of industries that are gaining investment compared to the UK.

Electronics hardware companies received the second most deals in Scotland (18% of the total) with 17 companies in this industry raising equity funding. This is reflected in our list of Scotland’s biggest deals of 2025 so far, where a number of companies deal in electronics hardware. This includes Neuranics; a company that’s developing highly sensitive magnetic sensing technology designed for advanced wearables, medical devices, and intuitive human-machine interaction.

Just behind this is renewable energy with 12 companies (12.4%), reflecting the growing importance of cleantech in the UK and in Scotland’s economy, as the country continues to position itself as a leader in the transition to net-zero.

Which company stage of evolution is seeing the most investment in Scotland?

Venture stage companies have led the way in Scotland’s funding activity since the start of the year. This contrasts with the broader UK picture for the quarter, where deals into Venture stage companies trailed behind Seed stage activity. This suggests that, in Scotland, investors are showing a stronger appetite for slightly larger, later-stage businesses compared to the UK overall.

Scotland’s Seed stage companies also performed strongly in Q1 2025, being the second-most prevalent stage of growth in companies that secured investment.

In our Q1 2025 report of all UK investment, we saw an interesting trend where early-stage startups continued to attract steady, if modest, funding — while later-stage companies raised fewer rounds, but much larger sums. And this is reflected in the Scottish investment market too.

Trends in female-founded Scottish companies

Since the start of 2025, 83% of funded Scottish companies have all-male founding teams. Just under 10% had an equal gender split in the founding team — and only 3.7% had an all-female founding team.

The figures are low, and historical data shows that the percentage of all-female founding teams is declining too. In Q4 2024 6.5% of funded Scottish companies had an all-female founding team, and 11.3% had an equal gender split.

If we look back even further, to 2024 as a whole, we can see an even wider gap. In 2024, 7.2% of funded Scottish companies had an all-female founding team, 9.6% was an equal gender split, and 79% was all-male.

Scotland’s biggest deals of 2025 so far

What’s next for Scottish investment?

If we discount the heights of post COVID-19 funding where 2021 and 2022 saw huge amounts of capital injected all across the UK, Scotland’s investment seems to be on the steady incline. This is particularly positive if we consider that the amount of investment and the number of deals is on the decline across the UK as a whole.

In fact, from 2023 to 2024, the amount invested into Scottish companies grew by 24%. And while the number of deals dropped by 9% year-on-year, it shows that there’s still investor confidence in Scottish companies — and even that investors are choosing to invest larger amounts.

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