(c) BBC and Douglas Fraser: I haven’t stored this image. NB: Don’t shut me down like Wings.
From one of Douglas Fraser’s favourites, the Scottish Business News Network, today:
‘Scottish companies raised £21million in the second quarter of 2018 (April – June), two and a half times more than the previous quarter (£8.4million). New figures from KPMG’s Venture Pulse report, which highlights key trends, opportunities, and challenges facing the venture capital market, reveals healthcare and biotechnology companies were responsible for £17million of total investment in Scotland.’
https://sbnn.co.uk/2018/07/30/investment-in-scottish-companies-doubles-to-21m-in-q2/
As always, here are earlier reports on Scottish business, to widen the picture and to strengthen your optimism in the face of Douglas and team at Misreporting Scotland:
Scottish Business Strength No.77: Small Scottish construction firms’ growth up 17%
Scottish small businesses still more confident than those in non-Scottish parts
Business activity soars to four-year high across manufacturing and service
Business confidence in Scotland soars by 24% while it sinks 29% in non-Scottish parts of UK
Scottish Government supports economy with new business rates unique in UK
Scottish business confidence higher than in any other region of UK
Don’t hesitate to use these, Douglas.
Talking-up Scotland 
Hi John – couple of quick snippets regarding ‘media’ investments in Scotland:
The REACH Group (combined Mirror and Express and Star Groups) have released some pretty awful figures today and have made a deliberate massive write-down in values of their ‘regional’ press (including The Record) – see Beeb business page snippets below:
The owner of the Mirror and Express newspapers has slumped to a £113m half-year loss after slashing the value of its regional publishing operations.
Reach, formerly known as Trinity Mirror, said the £150m charge reflected a “more challenging outlook” for its regional businesses.
They include the Manchester Evening News, Daily Record and Liverpool Echo.
Simon Fox, chief executive, said Reach had delivered a positive performance in a “difficult trading environment”.
He was “reasonably optimistic” about the prospects of the regional titles despite the writedown and said they had a long-term future digitally.
Reach had no plans to close print editions “at the moment” – (sounds a less than ringing endorsement to this reader, in all honesty).
Meanwhile – a very wealthy digital economy chap in USA has decided to use some of his moolah in a positive way and has picked The Ferret as an alternative media site he feels is worth supporting (fairly substantially) – see snippet from The Press Gazette below:
Scottish investigative journalism co-operative The Ferret has been given a $100,000 grant from a philanthropic investment firm led by the founder of Ebay.
The two-year grant, which comes from Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network with the promise of no loss of editorial control, will go towards enabling The Ferret to expand its journalistic capacity and increase its membership and reach.
The Ferret investigates public interest topics, such as fracking, election funding and the arms trade, and is owned by its subscribers and journalists, with places for readers reserved on its board.
The two-year grant, which comes from Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network with the promise of no loss of editorial control, will go towards enabling The Ferret to expand its journalistic capacity and increase its membership and reach.
The Ferret investigates public interest topics, such as fracking, election funding and the arms trade, and is owned by its subscribers and journalists, with places for readers reserved on its board.
I suspect the ‘Scottish’ tories better keep trying to get their paperwork in order regarding the Scottish Unionist Association Trust and the rest of their Dark Money ventures etc – ‘cos The Ferret just got a great big GREEN LIGHT to keep on the case!!!
(Interesting to note former ‘Scottish’ tory MP and shadow(y) Secretary of State for Scotland(shire), Peter Duncan, managed to ‘resign’ as a trustee of ‘Scottish Unionist Association Trust’ on the very day The Ferret nailed his involvement with the SUAT. The Ferret pointed out, en passant, that it was a tad strange for a paid lobbyist to be involved as a trustee of a trust making very large donations to a bevvy of ‘Scottish’ tory politicians.)
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Fascinating as always Ludo. When I first read ‘philanthropic,,, grant,,, no loss of of editorial control’ I was sceptical, but when you think of $100 000 over two years, the grant is not a massive amount, and is likely small change to an investment firm, so good on the Ferret getting it, and I hope it gives them the boost they need to really get dug in!
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