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Event round-up: Meet the Innovators LIVE, Glasgow

10 June 20254 min read
Guest Insights
Event round-up: Meet the Innovators LIVE, Glasgow

Held as part of Glasgow Tech Week 2025 and hosted by Barclays Eagle Labs, Meet the Innovators LIVE brought together founders, investors, civic leaders and ecosystem builders for a morning of networking, panel discussions, and startup showcases.

The agenda featured an opening overview of Glasgow’s tech landscape from Alisdair Gunn (Director of Glasgow City Innovation District), a fireside chat with Barbara Mills (Deputy Programme Director at CivTech Scotland), and a panel discussion with local innovators sharing practical insights on scaling, investment, and emerging technologies.

Our panellists also demonstrated their products, enabling attendees to experience some of Glasgow’s most exciting technological innovations for themselves. These included VR headsets, video games, and wind panel technology.

The event was the first of a spin-out series building upon the success of techUK’s Meet the Innovators video interview series, which showcases how member companies such as Samsung and RiVR are leading on building and supporting the UK’s innovation ecosystem.

 

 

Below are the key topics and themes that emerged throughout the morning.

🏗️ Building Glasgow’s Innovation Ecosystem

  • Strong foundations in sectors like healthtech, advanced manufacturing, space, semiconductors, cleantech, and AI.

  • Emphasis on deep tech requiring specialised expertise, with investment trends shifting beyond software to hardware and scientific innovation.

  • Local mapping work (e.g. Glasgow City Region’s data hub) highlighted bottom-up analysis of companies and emerging clusters.

  • Strategic focus on place-based development, supported by initiatives such as Innovation Districts, incubators and accelerators.

💸 Investment and Growth Challenges

  • Access to early-stage capital, particularly for deep tech, remains a key barrier.

  • Angel investors need to understand demands for greater capital intensity.

  • Importance of building a connected investor network, including global capital, to sustain the founder pipeline.

  • Local and national investment schemes (Scottish Enterprise, British Business Bank) supporting growth, but gaps remain, especially for scaling.

🤝 The Role of Collaboration and Place

  • Emphasis on partnership: public sector, academia, investors and industry aligning to build capacity.

  • Need for collaboration across UK regions to manage space constraints in hubs like Cambridge and attract overspill growth.

  • Calls for better connectivity between Glasgow’s ecosystem and wider UK and international innovation networks.

🌍 Public Sector Innovation as Opportunity

  • CivTech Scotland spotlighted as a model for turning public-sector challenges into business opportunities.

  • Structured challenge process enables companies (from startups to SMEs) to develop solutions with the public sector as first customer.

  • Examples ranged from tree health monitoring to menopause support services.

  • Future ambitions to expand into platform-level and policy-led innovation, tackling systemic challenges with collaborative approaches.

🚀 Innovator Perspectives

Panel discussions with local founders highlighted:

  • Challenges of raising early-stage and scale-up capital, often requiring international investor engagement.

  • Value of public funding and networks (e.g. SDI, Barclays Eagle Labs) in opening markets.

  • Talent strengths in Scotland’s universities, but competition for senior technical roles remains tough.

  • Importance of cultural fit and meaningful projects to attract and retain specialist talent.

🧭 Emerging Technology Trends

  • AI and machine learning seen as critical across sectors—from renewable energy site planning to games development workflows.

  • Quantum technologies with potential to transform encryption and communication (e.g. quantum key distribution).

  • Sustainable innovation focus: carbon capture, hydrogen, circular design in manufacturing.

  • Connectivity advances (5G slicing, low-earth-orbit satellite links) opening up new business models, especially in rural and remote contexts.

💬 Final Reflections

The event reinforced the need for:

  • Deeper collaboration across companies, investors, academia and government.

  • Strategic, sustained investment in both early-stage innovation and the infrastructure to scale.

  • Ensuring public-sector demand can drive private innovation with real-world impact.

  • Celebrating Glasgow’s strengths while addressing systemic barriers to make it a globally competitive tech hub.

 

 

Click here to find out more about techUK’s Nations & Regions and Tech & Innovation activity.

techUK – Unleashing UK Tech and Innovation 

The UK is home to emerging technologies that have the power to revolutionise entire industries. From quantum to semiconductors; from gaming to the New Space Economy, they all have the unique opportunity to help prepare for what comes next.

techUK members lead the development of these technologies. Together we are working with Government and other stakeholders to address tech innovation priorities and build an innovation ecosystem that will benefit people, society, economy and the planet - and unleash the UK as a global leader in tech and innovation.

For more information, or to get in touch, please visit our Innovation Hub and click ‘contact us’.