How GRID is tackling Scotland’s scaling problem, one cluster at a time

However, the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District (GRID), is happening now and it has a flag-bearer company in its midst which sits at the intersection of AI, robotics and medicine.

As I sat down to speak to the head of GRID, Susie Mitchell, Chemify had completed its $50m Series B funding round, co-led by Wing Venture Capital and Insight Partners, with participation from a syndicate of investors including 8VC and existing backers Triatomic Capital, Blueyard, Rockspring and Eos.

The round which builds on an earlier Series A raise of £43m led by Triatomic Capital.

In addition, the company has recently secured £22m from the public sector - £16m from Scottish Enterprise and £6m from the UK Government - towards its expansion.

The firm has grown from 12 employees to 200 in two years and expanded into two floors of Govan's Health Innovation Hub, built on the site of a former Linthouse shipyard. Projections are that the complement will hit 450 staff over the next three years thanks to the new investment.

Susie says Chemify is the north star of what GRID is trying to achieve - a scalable Scottish company whose economic impact will be felt in the region and beyond.

She said: “We want more companies like Chemify to emerge and we need more Quantcores too, because we've got all the things that would enable that to happen. We want the benefits felt locally, not just by the businesses."

Susie Mitchell has spent two decades in Glasgow's health, science and innovation policy before taking the helm at GRID in February 2024.

She was director of Glasgow City of Science and Innovation for a decade where she led on and supported major innovation programmes including the city's £33m Innovation Accelerator bid, and held roles at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Glasgow City Council.

She also has a parallel career as a session singer and BBC broadcaster.

The Glasgow Riverside Innovation District (GRID) is a 700-acres innovation quarter spanning both banks of the Clyde, from the University of Glasgow's Gilmorehill campus through Govan and Partick to Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

It is a partnership between the University of Glasgow, Glasgow City Council and Scottish Enterprise that aims to translate research into scaling businesses, while ensuring economic benefits reach surrounding communities.

GRID isn't short of macro-economic reach, with the region it covers encompassing 5,000 businesses and 64,000 jobs.

The key to creating more companies like Chemify however, according to the GRID team, is more investment and one method of achieving that is through clusters.

Its three flagship clusters centre around health and life sciences, critical technologies and the creative industries.

Susie describes health and life sciences at being at a tipping point for greater investment.

She said: “it's quite difficult to get investors to come to Glasgow, and they'll come where there is scale, where there is clustering, and where there is a tipping point of scaling businesses.”

Glasgow has most of its creative anchors based in GRID.

The district takes in Pacific Quay, home to BBC Scotland, STV, Film City and the Scottish Event Campus, alongside SWG3's ongoing Yardworks and AIRSpace partnerships with the University.

Critical technologies is viewed by the GRID team as one cluster with the potential to create another Chemify.

Scotland's Critical Technologies Supercluster (SCTS) is a nationwide initiative, a partnership between Technology Scotland, the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, and the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde jointly.

It spans photonics, quantum, semiconductors, and connectivity/sensing, currently supporting 11,000 skilled jobs and generating £4bn plus in revenue, with an ambition to reach £10bn by 2035.

GRID supports the cluster’s work through the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre, and a planned Critical Technologies Nanofabrication Facility (CTNF) to expand semiconductor capability.

One promising GRID-based company is Quantcore which raised £2.5m this year and develops superconducting quantum hardware.

GRID has no shortage of land with 85 hectares sitting vacant across the district.

Susie said: “This provides a great investment opportunity, and a USP for Glasgow, with the right interventions and could allow us, working closely with regional partners, to address a number of policy priorities at once.”

A total of 90 per cent of it is developable but one problem we face is viability as Glasgow can't charge the rents that make speculative lab space stack up commercially in London or Manchester.

Much of the land, particularly around Govan, needs remediation before it can be built on at all.

Public money is needed to first absorb risk a private developer wouldn't take alone.

Glasgow City Council has secured £7.5m through the City Deal specifically to ready land near the Health Innovation Hub, with a further Local Innovation Partnerships Fund expected to unlock further opportunities.

Susie said: "We can't demand the lab premiums, the rental premiums, of London or Manchester. So what we need to look at is almost that de-risking capital."

GRID's ambitions extend beyond commercial scale with its boundary spanning some of Glasgow's most affluent areas alongside its most deprived.

Projects like Ignite, a six-week accelerator for minority ethnic and women founders that produced 15 new businesses with minimal dropout, and the planned Talent Lab modern apprenticeship scheme.

GRID launches open-access mass spec facility to help scaling life sciences firms

GRID has built an open-access mass spectrometry facility to stop equipment costs slowing scaling companies.

The Glasgow Riverside Innovation District (GRID) has installed new mass spectrometers at a centralised facility it says is among the most advanced of its kind in Scotland and the UK.

The equipment is shared across scaling life sciences businesses rather than requiring each company to buy its own, addressing a capital cost that GRID head Susie Mitchell says has held back growth.

The facility opened this year as part of GRID's wider infrastructure development push.

One early beneficiary is Entourage AI, a life sciences company that needed the mass spec kit specifically to scale but could not justify the outlay alone.

"It's a key win for us," Susie said. She added that the ambition is for scaling companies to access "market insight, access to customers" and equipment otherwise out of reach, rather than sourcing it independently, the same logic behind GRID's nanofabrication and land-readiness investments.

Five takeaways

1 - Chemify is GRID's proof of concept.

Twelve staff to 200 in two years, a £44m Series A and $50m+ Series B, grown out of devolved UK funding GRID helped secure, now occupying two floors of the Health Innovation Hub.

2 - Concentration beats volume

GRID already has 64,000 jobs and 5,000 businesses, but Susie Mitchell says investors follow tipping points, not headcounts. Health and life sciences may be closest to reaching one.

3 - Vacant land — one of GRID’s biggest untapped assets

Significant vacant land, close to world-class research, health and innovation assets, gives Glasgow a rare opportunity to create space for businesses to grow while tackling multiple priorities through the same investment.

4 - Critical technologies needs its Chemify

A £4bn-revenue sector, aiming to be £10bn by 2025, with a nationally significant nanofabrication facility planned, but Quantcore's £2.5m seed round is still the best scaling example so far.

5 - Inclusion is structural, not symbolic

With around 19.5 per cent economic inactivity in nearby Govan, inclusive schemes like the Ignite business accelerator and GRID’s new Talent Lab Modern Apprenticeship are built to keep benefits local.