Archangels invests £13.4M to fuel growth of Scotland’s early-stage businesses

Edinburgh-based investment syndicate, Archangels, invested £13.4m during 2022 in some of Scotland’s most promising early-stage tech and life science companies.

The total investment for 2022 among 11 businesses marks a 14% increase on Archangels’ investment activity in 2021 (11.8m).

New additions to the portfolio included tech firm Earth Blox who secured £1.5m funding from Archangels to expand its global reach and further develop its no-code Earth Observation (EO) cloud-based SaaS.

Other businesses to receive follow-on funding included Integrated Graphene, Cytomos, Hearing Diagnostics, Administrate and BioCaptiva.

Co-investors on deals totalling £27.0m during 2022 included Scottish Enterprise, Par Equity, Mercia and various Scottish angel syndicates.

Archangels also generated a significant gain on the sale of portfolio company Optoscribe during the year.

The world’s longest continually running investment syndicate, Archangels this year marked its 30th anniversary with a report by the University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School highlighting the value of Archangels’ activity in Scotland.

Analysis by the business school found that the £161m invested by Archangels since 1992 has generated up to £1.4 billion Gross Value Added (GVA) for the Scottish economy and directly created 3,647 high-skilled jobs.

David Ovens (pictured above), Joint Managing Director at Archangels, said: “2022 has been a big year for Archangels and our members. Thirty years of investing in and supporting Scotland’s life science and technology sectors is a milestone of which we’re all very proud. Despite ongoing volatility in the economy, we have continued to see strong demand for funding from innovative early-stage businesses with the ambition to grow and scale. While the economic outlook remains challenging for 2023, we are confident that we’ll continue to find opportunities for our members to back exciting and innovative young companies.”

Archangels aims to deliver returns for its investors while harnessing their experience and networks to fuel the success of Scotland’s entrepreneurs and innovators in technology and life sciences. The syndicate currently has around 120 members invested in a portfolio of 21 early-stage companies.