Startup Summit returns to Edinburgh with Brewdog boss to headline Barclays-backed event 

One half of the founding duo of Scottish craft beer giant Brewdog has been named as the headline speaker at a start-up event that returns to Edinburgh in November.

The Startup Summit is expected to attract more than 1,000 people to the city’s Assembly Rooms on 1 November after an international tour in recent years that has taken in San Francisco, Berlin and Hong Kong.

Organisers said the WeAreTheFuture’s Startup Summit will return to Edinburgh on 1st November to “celebrate Scotland’s vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem and make the case to make Edinburgh a go-to European capital for entrepreneurs”.

With over 1000 people expected to attend, this year’s event has been designed to have a “festival-feel”, while featuring three headline stages and speakers such as Brewdog’s James Watt, who set up the Aberdeenshire brewer in 2007 along with Martin Dickie.

Marking its sixth year, the summit has also signed exclusive partnerships with Barclays and angel capital association LINC Scotland, which organisers say will help turn Startup Summit into the premier event for startup entrepreneurs across the country.

The sponsorship further demonstrates Barclays’ ongoing commitment to supporting entrepreneurs, following on from the appointment earlier this year of Graham Cambridge as High Growth & Entrepreneurs Manager in Scotland, the provision of practical support of developing and scale-up businesses across the country, and the recently commissioned Next Generation Entrepreneurs Report.

Acknowledging the partnership Bruce Walker, founder of WeAreTheFuture, the company that owns Startup Summit, said: “Every major startup hub on the planet has a startup festival and it’s about time Scotland does as well. We’re excited to sign a major partnership with Barclays and LINC Scotland who are throwing their weight behind the summit and bringing expertise at every stage of growth for entrepreneurs.”

Stuart Brown, head of SME at Barclays, said: “Barclays is passionate about supporting entrepreneurs, from startup through the often tricky scale-up stage and beyond. Our dedicated High Growth relationship resource provides on the ground advice and access to a range of specialised services including lending.

“The Startup Summit offers invaluable insight and connections and should be a prerequisite for any entrepreneur on the first stage of their journey. Scotland has a long history of innovation and Barclays is backing Scotland’s entrepreneurs to continue this world-beating legacy.”

David Graeme, executive director at LINC Scotland, said “The angel community is a key building block in Scotland’s thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and we’re excited to get behind the Startup Summit, which gives entrepreneurs access to many of the resources they need to succeed.”