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Showcasing the support provided by Location Data Scotland

Showcasing the support provided by Location Data Scotland

January 2024
Working with organisations to help them develop innovative solutions, access data and make connections are just some of the key benefits that have been generated as a result of support provided by the team at Location Data Scotland.


Four companies have made huge strides over the last 3 years. In the following case studies, we hear from each of the businesses and understand how this support has really helped them scale up and grow.

Douglas McNeil, Managing Director, Eolas InsightEolas Insight offer automated mapping solutions for the environmental and ecological sectors.

Doug McNeil, Managing Director of Eolas Insight shared his thoughts on the support they received from Location Data Scotland, “LDS has helped raise our brand profile as a start-up company through several platforms and events to talk about our services and promote the company. The best example of this was being an exhibitor on the Scottish Innovation Village at GEO business 2023 (organised by Location Data Scotland) in London. We made a lot of connections at the show, including RICS who are now supporting one of our projects. We also met several investors at the event and at the time were going through seed investment. The investor who is leading our current seed investment round was a connection we made at the event. This investment will help us take the company to the next level and begin our scale up journey – all thanks to Location Data Scotland.

Watch Eolas Insight video case study

Chris Newlands, Founder and CEO, Space AyeSpace Aye is an innovative technology company who merge Internet of Things (IoT) data with real-time satellite imagery to provide in-depth information surrounding satellite imagery, creating a global view of the world.

Founder and CEO of Space Aye, Chris Newlands shared his thoughts on how Location Data Scotland has helped them in their scale up phase, “Being on the Location Data Scotland Scottish Innovation village at GEO business 2023 was a great platform for Space Aye to raise our profile and discover a number of exciting opportunities including how our technology will assist autonomous vehicles as they move to a fully autonomous stage (level 5). We also had interest from a transportation company at the show interested in the benefits of real-time satellite navigation. Location Data Scotland has also helped escalate our conversations with the policing organisations across the UK and emergency services in Scotland who see this technology as a game-changer in terms of accuracy and security. This has led to discussions with other emergency services organisations around how our technology can provide real-time satellite information to minimise wildfires.

Watch Space Aye video case study

Michael Groves, Founder and CEO, TopolyticsTopolytics is a data aggregation and analytics company who are making the world’s waste visible, verifiable, and valuable.

Founder and CEO Mike Groves commented on how Location Data Scotland has helped their business, “Location is a crucial part of our proposition and being linked to LDS is critical to our business as it helps us understand what other people are doing within the network. LDS has provided networking and showcase opportunities for Topolytics including being part of the Scottish Innovation Village at GEO Business 2023 which provided us with a platform to engage with potential partners and customers. It also gave me some ideas on how we could build our own contextual data to understand where the sites are that are managing and processing things around waste material and how could technologies be applied in that process.

Watch Topolytics video case study

Arun Gopinath, CEO and Co-founder, VahanomyVahanomy, a location data company, has two innovative products that use AI to escalate the rollout of the electric vehicle charging infrastructure and decarbonised transport.

CEO and Co-founder Arun Gopinath shared his thoughts on how Location Data Scotland has helped Vahanomy, “We were introduced to the Improvement Service who support local councils and government across Scotland who provided access to data from Scottish local authorities to evaluate the sources of data. We also received introductions to Scottish Government, Ordnance Survey, Registers of Scotland, and the Geospatial Commission who were carrying out a survey into the use of data for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, which we were able to contribute to. These introductions were instrumental to helping us grow our business – we got to the right person quickly and effectively, something that would have been difficult to do on our own. LDS also helped us raise our brand profile by inviting us to speak at events and showcasing our solutions through their newsletters, website, and social media. All thse elements have been very helpful for our business.

Watch Vahanomy video case study

We have a number of case studies on our website highlighting where location data is being used to drive innovation.

Geospatial solutions to solve ecological and environmental problems

Geospatial solutions to solve ecological and environmental problems

March 2022
We spoke to Doug McNeil of Eolas Insight about the support received from Location Data Scotland and being part of the Geovation Accelerator Programme.

Eolas Insight provide technical solutions focused on the ecological and environmental sectors in an easy, user friendly way.

EOLAS

They detect and provide counts for animals using satellite and aerial imagery combined with artificial intelligence. They have successfully delivered a project in Scotland tracking red deer and are now working in Mozambique looking at large animals – giraffes and elephants.

As part of the Geovation accelerator programme the team at Eolas Insight has been developing a business and financial case for a truly innovative geospatial portal that will allow environmentalists and ecologists to access the technologies for themselves to carry out the analysis.

Doug McNeil
Doug McNeil

In his interview founder of Eolas Insight Doug McNeil said, “The Geovation Accelerator programme allowed us to focus on the portal proof of concept. This was a critical step to format the business case prior to developing the prototype.  I really enjoyed the personal approach from the team at Geovation as they didn’t just provide information; they took the time to work out how this information could be embedded into our business.”

Eolas Insight were also supported by Location Data Scotland, who were instrumental in helping them network into other industries and opened doors to potential collaborators in the agricultural sector. Doug said, “Talking, collaborating and networking is key for any organisation working in the geospatial sector to not just open doors but to test your ideas and assess the next steps for your business. It can really make a huge difference.”