A TOTAL of 18 businesses with high growth potential from across Scotland have been named as winners at the Scottish EDGE Awards.

Supported by the Hunter Foundation, Royal Bank of Scotland, the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise, the competition has a vital role to play in the country’s economic growth.

The biggest winner at yesterday’s final was Edinburgh-based Touchlab, who scooped the £100,000 Higgs EDGE award for science, technology and engineering-focused businesses. It uses cutting-edge electronic skin to build tele-operated robot avatars in outer space and hazardous environments.

Fellow Scots business Matugga Rum was additionally awarded £25,000 at the awards, which featured keynote speakers including UK bioscience entrepreneur Professor Sir Christopher Evans, CEO at NatWest Group Alison Rose, and Poonam Gupta of PG Paper.

Sir Tom Hunter of the Hunter Foundation said: “Early stage, high growth businesses will play a vital role in rebuilding our economy and driving employment opportunities. As such, Scottish EDGE offers pivotal help to them, and it’s not just about the money. The support and peer-to-peer engagement is funda-mental in contributing to business success. Given we had significant increases in high quality applicants, I’m delighted Scottish Enterprise stepped up with an additional £500,000 of loan support enabling us to support far more businesses.”

Linda Hanna from Scottish Enterprise said: “Congratulations to all the winners in what was another high-calibre competition. We’re pleased to provide an additional £500,000 loan funding to help more of Scotland’s most promising and ambitious entrepreneurs grow their businesses.”