THE SMART Things Accelerator Centre (STAC), Scotland’s first Internet of Things (IoT) accelerator, has heralded the amount of female-led ventures in its third cohort of companies. 50 per cent of the latest STAC cohort companies have female founders, with 42 per cent of the total number of founders in cohort three being female.
STAC CEO Paul Wilson said: “We know from the Stewart Report and other data that getting more women into entrepreneurship is a no-brainer – it will significantly improve the nation’s economic output, with a large untapped population of women who can help drive our tech industry to the next level. So, we’re encouraged to see that STAC companies are proving to be a standard bearer here. STAC is truly for everyone.”
The companies to join STAC’s third cohort are: Claymore Surgical, DragonFlai, Happy Leaf, Lo.Works, Nano-lit, Neuranics, Prioto, Recoil Kneepads, Rigpa, SenseCity, Sequentrics, Silver Lion, Smplicare, SynSense, Tyre Runner, and Whitehaul. The companies are developing B2B and B2C technologies across multiple industry sectors including healthcare, energy, transport, housing, construction, and engineering.
Maggie Hicks, Co-Founder of SynSense, developing technology to monitor the health of athletes, said: “The in-depth training and mentoring STAC offers is exciting for us, not only in terms of how much our business will develop, but also how it will support our growth as people and leaders.”
Paul Wilson added: “We have already seen success and strong outcomes from our first two cohorts, with companies now actively employing in Scotland’s IoT sector, and we’re excited to support and chart the progress of our latest cohort.”
Already in 2023, STAC has launched ‘STAC Space’, ‘STAC Jobs’, and ‘STAC Invest’, with each initiative aimed at building a stronger international IoT cluster and ecosystem in Scotland. STAC Space is the accelerator’s new 250-desk and labs facility at Skypark in Glasgow, STAC Jobs is an IoT recruitment platform in partnership with Jordan Talent Solutions, and STAC Invest is an online platform showcasing Scotland’s high potential IoT and smart devices startups to local and international investors, via a partnership with Murphy Wealth.
Paul Wilson said: “With every partnership we enter, the rationale is always around how the relationship can support our STAC companies and build the IoT ecosystem, and we have more exciting partnerships to announce in the coming weeks and months.”
