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Holyrood opinion poll

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Scottish Enterprise defends technology investment Print E-mail
Monday, 10 March 2008

A leading technology entrepreneur and business angel has accused Scottish Enterprise of wasting public money and distorting the market to the detriment of the private sector. 

Brendan Hyland, who founded the optoelectronics company Kymata, subsequently sold to Alcatel in 2001, criticised the agency’s co-investment fund, which provides equity for start-ups, and its ITI initiative, which aims to commercialise expertise in the digital media, life sciences and energy sectors.

“The public sector is spoiling the market for early stage business finance funds through the co-investment programme,” Hyland told a conference hosted by Holyrood magazine. “And it is distorting the market and competing with SMEs through the ITI initiative. The scale of the wasted investment in this ill-considered initiative is appalling.”

Hyland, who assists and invests in early stage technology companies with global ambitions, said that it was widely accepted that the public sector did not represent an efficient means of allocating funds to the private sector. He said that Scotland was even less efficient than the rest of the UK, citing the comparative costs of financing technology grants north and south of the border.

Scottish Enterprise chief executive Jack Perry said the grant mentioned by Hyland was one of a number being transferred from the Scottish Government to the agency and it intended to reduce the bureaucracy associated with them. “In terms of distorting the market, there is no evidence on our co-investment fund and other investing activities. In fact quite the reverse; we have had extensive research done on this. The last thing on earth we are doing with this is competing with the private sector.”
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