STV and Scottish EDGE today announce a new partnership to further support Scotland’s entrepreneurs. In 2020, STV will gift two competition winners £75k airtime and a launch commercial to help grow their businesses; as well as £100k worth of airtime to Scottish EDGE to further drive awareness of the competition.

Scottish EDGE has so far awarded over £15m to 395 up-and-coming, innovative, high-growth potential entrepreneurial businesses, which in turn have boosted the Scottish economy with a further 1858 jobs and an additional £151m turnover. This year Scottish EDGE will launch the new STV Growth EDGE Award, which will be open to consumer-facing businesses in two rounds of funding - round 16 - the first round of 2020 which opens today - and round 17 later in the year. Collectively, the competition will award around £1m in funding to entrepreneurs operating across all sectors of business.

Applications for the first STV Growth EDGE open today, Tuesday 21st January. Round 16 of Scottish EDGE and the first STV Growth EDGE will be accepted until 2pm on Thursday 27th February. In addition to the £75,000 advertising package, the winner will attend a bespoke STV Growth Academy Masterclass at STV studios in Glasgow.

Harnessing STV’s wealth of experience in media planning, creative brand development, consumer insight and driving a return on investment, the finalists will also be able to access support and advice on effective marketing, communications and lead generation to support their ongoing business ambitions. This will be repeated for the second winner, who will be announced in the winter of 2020.

This investment from STV is part of their successful Growth Fund which launched in 2018 and was set up to support SMEs and help boost the Scottish economy. To date, STV have awarded £8.9m across 341 deals.

Details on how to apply are available at scottishedge.com ahead of the deadline of Thursday 27th February at 2pm.

Source: Scottish EDGE