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We're proud to announce we will be delivering the DigiTay Tay Cities Travel and Tourism Accelerator, a three-year digital adoption programme built to put real technology in the hands of the people shaping how visitors experience this region. 🤝

Delivered in partnership with the University of Edinburgh Traveltech Innovation Hub, the programme will support up to 100 travel, tourism, and hospitality SMEs across Angus, Dundee, Perth and Kinross, and Northeast Fife through themed cohorts, one-to-one mentoring, and practical technology trials.

Here's what's on offer:

▶️ Up to £2,000 in grant funding for technology trials
▶️ One-to-one mentoring and themed cohorts
▶️ In-person sessions across Dundee, Perth, Fife, and the wider region
▶️ A peer network built for the sector

The goal is simple: affordable, outcomes-led digital tools that make Tay Cities tourism businesses more resilient, more productive, and better equipped to deliver experiences that bring visitors back. ✈️

Watch this space for exciting updates on everything we're building together.

Samuel Weatherstone relocated to Edinburgh, co-founded ESK with no external funding, and grew the company from £250k to just under £4 million in four years. He then ran a year-long private equity process, approached 50 firms, and closed a round with Maven. He also had a baby during it.

His story isn't short on lessons. A few that stood out:

▶️ Getting the finance function in place early is the foundation everything else is built on, not an admin task to defer
▶️ A co-founder relationship works when it's built on trust first and complementary skills second
▶️ A closed door, including a six-month negotiation that went nowhere, often forces the outreach you should have made sooner
▶️ Cash generation is the signal that tells you whether to push forward or pivot, and cutting through the noise to see it clearly is harder than it sounds

ESK now operates across 34 countries, five continents, and 150 cities. North America is next.

None of these realisations happened in isolation. Having the right scaffolding around you matters, and for Samuel, that in part came from Callum at Techscaler, a mentor who knew the Scottish funding landscape, a community of founders navigating the same questions, and a network built from the ground up in a city where he was starting from scratch.

Read the full case study via the link in the comments!

We’re at Dublin Tech Summit! 🚀

Over the next two days, founders, investors, and operators from across global markets are in one place, sharing ideas and shaping what comes next.

Earlier today, our COO Richard Lennox took to the Accelerate Stage for a panel on what it really takes to build startups that last, alongside DC Cahalane of Sure Valley Ventures, Ted Calouhi of Duku AI and Yola Jones of Seluna.

The panel covered ground on the fundamentals that actually move the needle beyond the programme stage, from customer insight over technology to the value of surrounding yourself with advisors who actually understand your context.

One line from Richard that stuck: "Generic advisors will give you generic advice."

A good reminder that being in the right room changes everything.

For more from the summit, keep an eye on the Techscaler socials. 🔔