Scotland’s entrepreneurs closed deals worth more than £50m during the first year of lockdown despite the impact from the pandemic, according to Harper Macleod.
The Scottish law firm revealed that from April 2020 to March 2021, its corporate team closed 61 investment deals - a 42% increase on the previous year.
Almost 80% of those deals were in the entrepreneurial and high-growth area, with activity in that sector more than doubling from the previous financial year, from 22 deals to 49 deals.
More than half of the total deals - worth around £28m - came in 2021 alone, with investors outwith Scotland placing larger transactions on deals.
Tech sectors were by far the most active, representing almost two-thirds of the investments closed in 2020/21. This was followed by food, leisure and hospitality in the top three, then healthcare and life sciences.
Harper Macleod's figures show that despite reports suggesting that investment in fast-growth Scottish businesses was down in the first quarter this year, there was an increase from investment coming from high net-worth individuals.
Other deals during the year included investment into the new Bonnie & Wild Scottish marketplace at the St James Quarter in Edinburgh, and acting on behalf of Par Fund Management on an investment into a subsea engineering business.
Paula Skinner, partner and head of the entrepreneurial and investment team at Harper Macleod, said: "Despite everything that has happened, the faith of investors in growing Scottish businesses has stayed strong and I think this bodes well for the future.
“It's only by having a thriving generation of high-growth businesses that we can create the next big success story - and it's a real barometer of the health of our economy that support at this level has held up."
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