Adventures in Light
Three new Scottish consortia are celebrating after sharing the £30,000 Collaboration Prize from Co-operative Development Scotland (CDS), which encourages companies to join forces to grow.
Spirit producers Scottish Craft Distillers and The Scottish Honey and Beeswax Consortium are joined on the winners’ podium by Edinburgh-based creative design consortium Adventures in Light.
Each winning consortium receives £10,000 to help establish their new venture and grow the business in Scotland and internationally.
The judging panel also highly commended an application from businesses in the Borders to form the Ale Water Valley tourism marketing consortium.
Scottish Craft Distillers
John Swinney, Deputy First Minister said: “As emphasised through Scotland CAN DO, collaboration is a key to innovation and growth for businesses in all sectors of our economy.
“I am therefore delighted to see the breadth and quality of applicants to this year’s CDS Collaboration Prize.
“The judging panel clearly had a hard task in selecting the winners for this year’s Collaboration Prize. The three winning companies, however, are all shining examples of the increasing appetite from Scottish SMEs to explore the merits of working together.
Scottish Honey and Beeswax Consortium
“The sheer diversity of the winning collaborations demonstrates the flexibility and huge potential of this innovative model, significantly helping businesses grow at home and internationally.”
Sarah Deas, chief executive of CDS, said: “It is inspiring to see so many businesses keen to collaborate for success.
“I congratulate the winners and wish them every success in their new ventures.”
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a closer look at each of the winners, who will tell us in more detail their plans for working together.