£10m announced for 2023 CivTech challenges by business minister

Business minister Ivan McKee has announced £10m for CivTech challenges in 2023.  

McKee made the announcement at the annual Demo Day event in Edinburgh.  

Following the biggest year for CivTech last year, it will now undergo rapid scaling. It has been supported by the Scottish Government in the form of £46m over the next four years, as well as the extra funding boost announced this morning.  

The world’s first public-sector-focused innovation accelerator brings together public finance with private sector innovation in a bid to solve major challenges facing the public and third sector in Scotland.

By supporting tech innovators to grow their own business and industry profile, the programme leverages further contracts and private investment for participating companies, with alumni companies collectively securing over £67m investment deal flow and creating over 320 jobs so far.

McKee said: “CivTech has grown enormously since it first launched, and with it, the Scottish Government has grown its investment in this extraordinary accelerator programme. I am pleased to announce £10m in Scottish Government funding for Challenges over the next year, and with match funding from Challenge Sponsors, we do expect that pot to increase the total spent on innovation at CivTech to over £12m in 2023 to 2024.

“This may be the first full in-person Demo Day in three years, but during that time CivTech has continued to make a positive impact in the physical world with successful alumni companies achieving follow-on investment and working to bring their solutions to life.  

“Not only does this accelerator demonstrate that the public and third sector can lead the way in solving problems, it shows we can also do it quickly. The tech companies creating the bespoke solutions for CivTech Challenges are often part of an ever-growing community of digital innovators across Scotland, and we can take a lot of pride in the Scottish Government playing an active role in that community.”