The Scottish government has unveiled the launch of a dedicated tech hub in San Francisco aimed at fostering closer ties between startups and international investors.
The month-long pilot program, run by technology incubator CodeBase, will see 12 Scottish startups working in areas from health technology to space tech given office space in San Francisco for two weeks at a time. The hub is located near the South Park District, home to a number of venture capital firms.
A key focus of the scheme will be to establish a permanent hub in the area, enabling business owners to remain in Scotland while maintaining easy access to the San Francisco tech community.
Scottish wellbeing economy secretary Mairi McAllan said the program will help raise the visibility of Scottish tech startups and help foster closer ties with international partners.
"Our £42 million Techscaler network is showcasing some of Scotland’s most promising startups on the global stage. The pilot Techscaler San Francisco hub is helping their businesses make connections in the world’s leading startup community," she said.
"The benefits are clear, our startups are expanding their networks and engaging with communities of like-minded individuals of owners, startups and investors. This will help increase their visibility and grow their businesses in the global marketplace."
The hub has been set up with support from flexible office accommodation provider Mindspace.
"Mindspace works with governments from several countries to create landing spaces for startups. It's amazing that the Scottish government has joined that list," said co-founder and CEO Dan Zakai.
"We have seen first hand the value of exposing startups to the San Francisco tech ecosystem. We hope to do more in future and to make the Techscaler hub a permanent fixture."
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Launched in November 2022, Techscaler is a nationwide tech startup support program aimed at strengthening the Scottish tech ecosystem, established on the basis of the key recommendations from the Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review.
Since its launch, Techscaler has recruited 643 startup founder members across 517 companies, offering expert mentoring and advice, providing seven workspace hubs, and organizing events and meetups.
One such member is notation.dev, which makes an open source toolkit for building serverless applications, and which has become one of the first companies to use the new Silicon Valley hub.
"Joining the San Francisco hub has energized me, and enabled me to connect with people from around the world working at the forefront of tech," said founder Daniel Grant.
"The power of San Francisco is the velocity at which information moves through the city. It is a hyper-charged network that accelerates innovation, and connects founders with collaborators, prospects and investors faster than anywhere else in the world."
Other startups taking part in the program include Playmaker, Unbaggaged, Krucial, National Support Network, Estendio, Your Spin, Valla, eCERTO, Infix, Lovat Compliance, and Refer My Jobs.
"Activities like this demonstrate Scotland’s ambition to become one of Europe’s leading startup communities, we are setting an example internationally and helping drive a fair and growing economy," McAllan said.
