The critical gap between early-stage support and sustainable scaling is where many high-potential businesses lose momentum. Framing the Future is a fringe event for the upcoming Female Founders Growth Summit created to bridge that gap by addressing the practical realities of high-growth.
Designed for early-stage female founders preparing to scale within 12 to 24 months, and the ecosystem partners who support them, this special Thursday Gathering combines practical workshops, expert talks, and curated activities. Founders will walk away with strategies they can implement immediately, alongside direct, meaningful connections with funders actively looking to back female-led businesses.
Meaningful ideas and changes are sparked when serendipitous connection collides with intention. The Thursday Gathering is our free, weekly meet-up that connects people from across Edinburgh’s innovation community to make things happen. Every Thursday, we bring together innovators of all backgrounds, from founders and investors to students and researchers, to discuss big ideas and connect human to human.
Powered by Advanced Research + Invention Agency
Grab a drink, and join the conversation! Whether you're looking to meet potential collaborators, exchange ideas, grow your network, or simply continue the conversation, this is a great opportunity to connect with fellow innovators, entrepreneurs, and members of the community. You never know where a conversation might lead!
Join Seilich for a relaxed herbal tea tasting exploring the flavours, plants and stories behind their meadow-grown botanicals. Sample a selection of Seilich’s herbal teas, learn about the wildflowers and herbs that go into each blend, and discover how their nature-positive approach connects every cup with the restoration of Scotland’s wildflower meadows.
Find out more about the exciting startups in our ecosystem at our Innovator Showcase - the perfect chance to meet the people behind the ideas.
- Grohwie – Grohwie is a Glasgow-based motion design and creative tech studio that helps growth-stage, purpose-led startups and organizations solve business challenges through strategic brand creatives and product animation. On its technology side, the studio is developing a gamified platform designed to make visual design learning, practicing, and earning more accessible and engaging. This tool helps designers build their craft and confidence more rapidly while expanding access to creative opportunities that helps job seekers.
- Ovation Agriculture - Ovation Agriculture is an Edinburgh-based agritech company dedicated to improving livestock health, welfare and productivity through practical innovation. Founded by Dr Jillian Gordon, Ovation Agriculture works closely with farmers, veterinarians and researchers to develop solutions that address real challenges faced by the livestock sector. Its flagship innovation is a patent-pending dental speculum designed to enable routine oral examinations and treatment in cattle and sheep, helping to identify health issues earlier and improve animal welfare. By combining scientific research with industry insight, Ovation Agriculture aims to support more resilient, sustainable and profitable farming systems across the UK and beyond.
- Little Moments - Little Moments is a digital platform promoting mental and relational health through parent-infant bonding. Little Moments offers short baby-focused mindfulness and guided imagery activities for key bonding times such as feeding and naptimes. It also offers psychoeducation, such as podcasts and blogs, to empower caregivers to choose presence over distraction while caregiving. Little Moments is evidence-backed and has been co-designed with parents, so that we know it works for them.
Apollo is an angel syndicate based in Edinburgh. Founded in 2013, our mission is to provide seed investment to new startups based in Scotland and to provide exciting investment opportunities for our members. We operate on a volunteer basis, with local business leaders giving their time to prepare companies for investment. We invest in companies on a one-off basis, and seek to provide early stage financing which is critical to getting off the ground whilst building a diverse portfolio for our members. We are passionate about growing young businesses, and we continue to develop our partnerships with larger scale investment firms across the UK to enable onward funding where required. We believe our model provides a great ‘light touch’ model for investors wanting to try something new and a great opportunity for local entrepreneurs.
Maven is a leading private equity and property manager, with over 120 executives based across our UK office network. We partner with ambitious, entrepreneurial management teams to accelerate growth, and serve thousands of investors with the goal of delivering exceptional returns.
Mint Ventures is a women-led angel investment group offering a fresh approach by making angel investment more accessible to women from all different business backgorunds. We are purpose led and invest in products and services that meet the needs and interests of women with a social, ethical or environmental purpose.
Through educating and encouraging more women to become angel investors, we create new sources of capital for innovative businesses to grow.
Building a company puts unusual pressure on founders, and it is remarkably easy to normalise levels of stress that ultimately affect both the individual and the business. This session, designed specifically for founders, will combine data, lived experience and founder stories to explore some of those pressures, how they show up as companies grow, and what founders can do to build greater resilience along the journey.
Take a seat and hear from Venture Café Edinburgh Director, Claudia Cavalluzzo who will go through how to make the most of a Thursday Gathering and give you a quick preview of what's in line for this week's event.
Venture Café is a global movement built on a simple but powerful belief: isolation is the enemy of innovation.
At our weekly Thursday Gatherings, we connect creators, entrepreneurs, investors, coworkers, students and visionaries to build strong, inclusive and equitable innovation ecosystem. As ecosystem activators, Venture Café Edinburgh is creating a central hub for the city's innovation ecosystem, driving visibility, collaboration and community.
And if you’d like to get more involved with Venture Café, there are plenty of ways to join our network:
🤝 Become a partner
🎤 Speak at an upcoming Thursday Gathering
🙌 Join our ambassador team
Hear from Ana Stewart (Chief Entrepreneur for the Scottish Government) and Emma Macdonald (CEO & Co-Founder of TBCo), in this discussed moderated by Megan Vasko (Founder, Salt Strategic).
Ana Stewart is a successful tech entrepreneur, serial investor and Partner at investment firm Eos. In 2025, she was appointed as Chief Entrepreneur for the Scottish Government. In 2022, Ana was appointed Chair of an independent review into female entrepreneurship by the Scottish Government, and is co-author of the Pathways report. Published in 2023, the report set out wide-reaching recommendations aimed at transforming female entrepreneurial participation rates in Scotland. As Chair of Pathways Forward, she is committed to championing and influencing the change required to create a more equitable and vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem and economy.
Emma Macdonald is the CEO and co-founder of TBCo (originally the Tartan Blanket Company), the Edinburgh-based, B Corp-certified brand she launched in 2014 with her husband, Fergus Macdonald, after spotting a gap in the market for natural, sustainable, well-designed home textiles. Drawing on a background in fashion buying and merchandising, Emma has led TBCo's growth from its first recycled wool blanket into a design-led accessories, homeware, sleepwear and womenswear brand built around natural and recycled fibres.
Want a free ticket to the Female Founders Growth Summit? Now’s your chance! If you’re a female founder, you’ll have an opportunity to jump on the mic and give your best elevator pitch - all within 60 seconds. We’ll let the audience vote and one lucky winner will leave with a ticket for the Summit, happening on October 1st in Edinburgh.
NOTE: Registration required! If you'd like to pitch, you must pre-register to this session by clicking the 'Join Session' button on this page.
A special thank you to the Pathways Forward team for offering this ticket to the Venture Café Edinburgh community.
This fireside chat brings together Dr. Andrea Taylor, CEO of Edinburgh Innovations (EI), and Jessalyn Gerbholz, Venture Partner, PXN Group to explore strategies for scaling female-led spinouts and strengthening the women-in-STEM commercialisation pipeline. The session serves as an invitation for driving systemic change: from unlocking early-stage patient capital for deep-tech ventures to creating sustainable pathways that attract, retain, and scale female talent across Scotland's innovation ecosystem.
The critical gap between early-stage support and sustainable scaling is where many high-potential businesses lose momentum. Framing the Future is a fringe event for the upcoming Female Founders Growth Summit created to bridge that gap by addressing the practical realities of high-growth.
Designed for early-stage female founders preparing to scale within 12 to 24 months, and the ecosystem partners who support them, this special Thursday Gathering combines practical workshops, expert talks, and curated activities. Founders will walk away with strategies they can implement immediately, alongside direct, meaningful connections with funders actively looking to back female-led businesses.
Meaningful ideas and changes are sparked when serendipitous connection collides with intention. The Thursday Gathering is our free, weekly meet-up that connects people from across Edinburgh’s innovation community to make things happen. Every Thursday, we bring together innovators of all backgrounds, from founders and investors to students and researchers, to discuss big ideas and connect human to human.
Powered by Advanced Research + Invention Agency
Grab a drink, and join the conversation! Whether you're looking to meet potential collaborators, exchange ideas, grow your network, or simply continue the conversation, this is a great opportunity to connect with fellow innovators, entrepreneurs, and members of the community. You never know where a conversation might lead!
Join Seilich for a relaxed herbal tea tasting exploring the flavours, plants and stories behind their meadow-grown botanicals. Sample a selection of Seilich’s herbal teas, learn about the wildflowers and herbs that go into each blend, and discover how their nature-positive approach connects every cup with the restoration of Scotland’s wildflower meadows.
Find out more about the exciting startups in our ecosystem at our Innovator Showcase - the perfect chance to meet the people behind the ideas.
- Grohwie – Grohwie is a Glasgow-based motion design and creative tech studio that helps growth-stage, purpose-led startups and organizations solve business challenges through strategic brand creatives and product animation. On its technology side, the studio is developing a gamified platform designed to make visual design learning, practicing, and earning more accessible and engaging. This tool helps designers build their craft and confidence more rapidly while expanding access to creative opportunities that helps job seekers.
- Ovation Agriculture - Ovation Agriculture is an Edinburgh-based agritech company dedicated to improving livestock health, welfare and productivity through practical innovation. Founded by Dr Jillian Gordon, Ovation Agriculture works closely with farmers, veterinarians and researchers to develop solutions that address real challenges faced by the livestock sector. Its flagship innovation is a patent-pending dental speculum designed to enable routine oral examinations and treatment in cattle and sheep, helping to identify health issues earlier and improve animal welfare. By combining scientific research with industry insight, Ovation Agriculture aims to support more resilient, sustainable and profitable farming systems across the UK and beyond.
- Little Moments - Little Moments is a digital platform promoting mental and relational health through parent-infant bonding. Little Moments offers short baby-focused mindfulness and guided imagery activities for key bonding times such as feeding and naptimes. It also offers psychoeducation, such as podcasts and blogs, to empower caregivers to choose presence over distraction while caregiving. Little Moments is evidence-backed and has been co-designed with parents, so that we know it works for them.
Apollo is an angel syndicate based in Edinburgh. Founded in 2013, our mission is to provide seed investment to new startups based in Scotland and to provide exciting investment opportunities for our members. We operate on a volunteer basis, with local business leaders giving their time to prepare companies for investment. We invest in companies on a one-off basis, and seek to provide early stage financing which is critical to getting off the ground whilst building a diverse portfolio for our members. We are passionate about growing young businesses, and we continue to develop our partnerships with larger scale investment firms across the UK to enable onward funding where required. We believe our model provides a great ‘light touch’ model for investors wanting to try something new and a great opportunity for local entrepreneurs.
Maven is a leading private equity and property manager, with over 120 executives based across our UK office network. We partner with ambitious, entrepreneurial management teams to accelerate growth, and serve thousands of investors with the goal of delivering exceptional returns.
Mint Ventures is a women-led angel investment group offering a fresh approach by making angel investment more accessible to women from all different business backgorunds. We are purpose led and invest in products and services that meet the needs and interests of women with a social, ethical or environmental purpose.
Through educating and encouraging more women to become angel investors, we create new sources of capital for innovative businesses to grow.
Building a company puts unusual pressure on founders, and it is remarkably easy to normalise levels of stress that ultimately affect both the individual and the business. This session, designed specifically for founders, will combine data, lived experience and founder stories to explore some of those pressures, how they show up as companies grow, and what founders can do to build greater resilience along the journey.
Take a seat and hear from Venture Café Edinburgh Director, Claudia Cavalluzzo who will go through how to make the most of a Thursday Gathering and give you a quick preview of what's in line for this week's event.
Venture Café is a global movement built on a simple but powerful belief: isolation is the enemy of innovation.
At our weekly Thursday Gatherings, we connect creators, entrepreneurs, investors, coworkers, students and visionaries to build strong, inclusive and equitable innovation ecosystem. As ecosystem activators, Venture Café Edinburgh is creating a central hub for the city's innovation ecosystem, driving visibility, collaboration and community.
And if you’d like to get more involved with Venture Café, there are plenty of ways to join our network:
🤝 Become a partner
🎤 Speak at an upcoming Thursday Gathering
🙌 Join our ambassador team
Hear from Ana Stewart (Chief Entrepreneur for the Scottish Government) and Emma Macdonald (CEO & Co-Founder of TBCo), in this discussed moderated by Megan Vasko (Founder, Salt Strategic).
Ana Stewart is a successful tech entrepreneur, serial investor and Partner at investment firm Eos. In 2025, she was appointed as Chief Entrepreneur for the Scottish Government. In 2022, Ana was appointed Chair of an independent review into female entrepreneurship by the Scottish Government, and is co-author of the Pathways report. Published in 2023, the report set out wide-reaching recommendations aimed at transforming female entrepreneurial participation rates in Scotland. As Chair of Pathways Forward, she is committed to championing and influencing the change required to create a more equitable and vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem and economy.
Emma Macdonald is the CEO and co-founder of TBCo (originally the Tartan Blanket Company), the Edinburgh-based, B Corp-certified brand she launched in 2014 with her husband, Fergus Macdonald, after spotting a gap in the market for natural, sustainable, well-designed home textiles. Drawing on a background in fashion buying and merchandising, Emma has led TBCo's growth from its first recycled wool blanket into a design-led accessories, homeware, sleepwear and womenswear brand built around natural and recycled fibres.
Want a free ticket to the Female Founders Growth Summit? Now’s your chance! If you’re a female founder, you’ll have an opportunity to jump on the mic and give your best elevator pitch - all within 60 seconds. We’ll let the audience vote and one lucky winner will leave with a ticket for the Summit, happening on October 1st in Edinburgh.
NOTE: Registration required! If you'd like to pitch, you must pre-register to this session by clicking the 'Join Session' button on this page.
A special thank you to the Pathways Forward team for offering this ticket to the Venture Café Edinburgh community.
This fireside chat brings together Dr. Andrea Taylor, CEO of Edinburgh Innovations (EI), and Jessalyn Gerbholz, Venture Partner, PXN Group to explore strategies for scaling female-led spinouts and strengthening the women-in-STEM commercialisation pipeline. The session serves as an invitation for driving systemic change: from unlocking early-stage patient capital for deep-tech ventures to creating sustainable pathways that attract, retain, and scale female talent across Scotland's innovation ecosystem.