26 Startups Powering Innovation Across Aberdeen & the Isles
From Shetland’s maritime heritage inspired watches to vibration-based marine renewable energy, these are the 26 Aberdeen and Island start-ups taking part in the 2026 Startup Accelerator.
RGU’s renowned innovative start-up development programme, the RGU Startup Accelerator is now in its eighth year. This flagship entrepreneurship programme has helped create over 250 new ventures in addition to generating over £17million in economic impact.
It has also produced essential social impact educating over 60,000 children in maths and created skilled jobs, not to overlook widespread cultural impact such as training future Great Pottery Throw Down winners like AJ Simpson.
There have been many success stories along the way, including our alumni Archilink and Highland Heritage Woodworks. We are also delighted to see recent updates from Inglaze from our 2025 cohort.
This year, thanks to funding from the Scottish Funding Council and Knowledge Exchange and Innovation Fund applications, we have been able to focus more on supporting commercialisation of research projects.
The 2026 applications were exclusively open to RGU students, staff and alumni (within 10 years of graduation) along with anyone from Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles through the Islands Entrepreneurial Network.
The 26 selected startups will each be able to access, in addition to pragmatic and high-quality entrepreneurship education, £3,000 equity-free seed funding, mentorship, plugging into academic and entrepreneurial ecosystem support such as our sponsors Barclays Eagle Labs, and, of course, opportunities to exhibit and live pitch for cash prizes at the hotly anticipated Startup Showcase event.
Due to popular demand, this event will once again be held at our mothership RGU campus in Garthdee, Aberdeen, taking place on Thursday 4 June 2026. Shining a spotlight on innovation, we also promise fun surprises for guests travelling from Hong Kong and beyond.
This year, we are delighted to see the return of special award categories, including the Felix Chung Sustainability Prize which will be worth £5,000, plus the well-deserved Mentor/Judges Prize.
Although this event is invite-only, get in touch with us at innovation@rgu.ac.uk if you would like to attend.
See more information on this year’s start-ups below.
Aberdeen
The Tactical Data Company
Founders: Tim Clarke and Surya Ramesh (Alumni)
The Tactical Data Company decodes organisations' human operating system by mapping invisible flows. Privacy-first analytics reveal hidden connectors and bottlenecks driving transformation, DEI and retention.
Murray McNeish Energy Optimisation Solutions
Founder: Murray McNeish (Student)
Helping small cafes, restaurants and takeaways reduce energy consumption and lower bills with affordable, hands-on kitchen energy audits. Practical fixes, real savings, greener businesses.
Oceanfly VR
Founders: Julie Youngson (Alumni) and Mark Williams
A VR-based training solution designed to build drone operator competency for hazardous offshore environments, using realistic scenarios and immersive feedback to prepare pilots safely and effectively.
Roamstead
Founder: Sarah Wyatt (Student)
A rooftop box, redesigned as a portable greenhouse, to grow food on the go.
ELEVARE
Founder: Gregor Robb (Student)
Crafting all-natural, customised protein drinks.
Space for Sound
Founders: Jo-Anne Tait, Connor Brown, Rory Sinclair (Alumni), Bekkah Davidson
Space for Sound is a community-driven initiative that creates opportunities for people to learn and connect through music and audio experiences.
ChargyTech
Founder: Nathan Ikani (Student)
Chargy is a lightweight, clip-on battery pack that connects directly to the PS5 DualSense controller's USB-C port. It allows gamers to play and charge simultaneously, no cables, no docks, no gameplay interruptions. Designed to contour naturally with the controller, Chargy is built for maximum comfort.
AnchorPath
Founder: Katelyn Power (Student)
AnchorPath is a digital platform designed to support care-experienced young people, foster carers and social workers. By improving connection, communication and access to guidance, it will help young people build confidence and independence as they move into adulthood.
Equity Lighthouse
Founders: Leila Neshat-Mokadem (Student) and Clare Depasquale (Alumni)
Do you want to CONNECT through Inclusion, CREATE for Equity, CELEBRATE Diversity? Reduce health and educational inequalities? Equity Lighthouse is here to help! Through training, research and co-creation, from classroom to community, Equity Lighthouse leaves no one behind.
R&B Digital Services
Founders: Adrian Rendon-Nava (Staff) and Angel Barroyeta-Nunez (Alumni)
Our startup provides Digital Twin solutions for Scottish manufacturers seeking to modernise their operations, improve efficiency, and reduce costs through smart, data-driven engineering.
Alba Kinetics
Founder: Hossein Zanganeh (Staff)
Alba Kinetics uses flow-induced vibrations to generate marine renewable energy with a design that is easy to manufacture, install and scale, redefining how ocean energy can be harvested.
ProjChain
Founder: Rita-Michel Greiss (Student)
ProjChain is the digital trust layer for Net-Zero project delivery.
Deecite AI
Founders: Daniel McPherson and Michael Piercey (Students)
Optimised Full-Stack AI Software Development . Deecite AI takes a user's idea, and writes the entire code for it, making it ready to use just by submitting their idea.
Islands
ReGrow
Founder: Alison McDougall
Regrow is an emerging wellbeing venture developing toward a social enterprise model. It exists to make effective, preventative whole-being care accessible and affordable for people in rural and remote communities, starting in Orkney.
Orkney Wild Crafts
Founder: Rhiannon O'Connell
This project combines a for-profit natural cosmetics business with a non-profit social enterprise to create a circular, community-centred model of sustainable wellbeing. It addresses two intertwined challenges: the environmental cost of mainstream beauty products and the lack of accessible, practical education around sustainable living in resource-limited communities. The cosmetics line offers biodegradable, locally produced products infused with nettle and seaweed oils—ingredients with exceptional skin benefits that are ethically foraged from local coastlines and ‘wastelands’.
Haaf Watches
Founder: Paul Mullay
Haaf is a watch company designing and selling marine timepieces that celebrate nautical design and Shetland's maritime heritage. The first model, the Haaf Pelagic, draws inspiration from the Shetland Pelagic fishing fleet, their crews and their history.
Hannah Wooldrage
Founder: Hannah Wooldrage
Hannah's jewellery brand celebrates the landscape, heritage, and folklore of Orkney through contemporary, sustainable design. Each piece begins with a direct connection to a place. She takes moulds from rocks found along the Orkney coastline, form wax replicas of their textures, and cast them in recycled silver.
Thistle Bridal
Founder: Hope Laing
Thistle Bridal is a mobile bridal shop that sells preloved and ex sample wedding dresses. The wedding industry is known for being expensive, and Thistle Bridal aims to smash the stigma by offering an accessible option for brides-to-be.
StructuredAF
Founder: Alex Sheach
Right now, fewer than 12% of all internet searches get past the first half of the page of Google. StructuredAF is an app which flies under the radar of website hosts blocking AI-crawlers and creating a framework which unifies all your business information in a structured form so the AI-crawlers can see exactly what you offer.
Siar Interactive
Founder: Calum MacIntosh
Siar Interactive is a startup games studio located on the island of North Uist, in the heartland of Gaelic. The studio will develop games which include Scottish Gaelic and enrich the creative ecosystem by providing a hub which will aim to use local talent, providing good quality opportunities for local creative practitioners.
Urban Viking LTD
Founder: Andrea Bibby
Urban Viking is a Shetland-born creative enterprise uniting art, publishing, music, and design under one purpose: to help people reconnect with creativity, nature, and self-sufficiency in an increasingly digital, disconnected world.
Lewis Lavender
Founder: Paul Darvell
Lewis Lavender is reimagining crofting for the modern world. Based on the Isle of Lewis, the startup is transforming a traditional coastal croft into a sustainable herb and wellness enterprise that creates calm from the wild. Its goal is to prove that remote, windswept land can produce high-value products, restore biodiversity, and support a viable rural livelihood.
Orkney Designer Vintage
Founder: Richard Smith
Orkney Designer Vintage addresses a clear retail gap in the Orkney market: the lack of affordable, fashionable clothing options for local residents. Through regular pop-up events, resale partnerships, and future online expansion, Orkney Designer Vintage provides access to quality designer and vintage pieces without the premium price tag.
The Orkney Apothecary
Founder: Victoria Bennett
The Orkney Apothecary is a women-led sustainable startup that transforms unused or agricultural land into a thriving wildflower meadow and herb garden. From this ground, it handcrafts herbal teas, non-alcoholic tisanes, and traditional saining blends inspired by Orkney’s wild plants, folklore, and coastal landscapes.
The Rail
Founder: Pamela Rorie
The Rail is a contemporary occasionwear hire and styling business based in Orkney, created to empower women to look and feel their best at life’s biggest moments. It offers a curated collection of sustainable, trend-led dresses and accessories for weddings, proms, parties, and special occasions.
Hoxa Hub
Founder: Adam Clarke
Across the Scottish Islands, there is limited infrastructure for digital production, innovation, and research. At the same time, the renewable energy revolution transforming these islands will remain disconnected from the creative economy. Hoxa Hub will change that. Based in Orkney, Hoxa Hub will become a pioneering centre for creative technology and sustainability innovation, linking renewable energy with digital creativity. It will provide a co-working and incubation space for early-stage digital artists, independent game developers, and researchers, offering access to mentoring, technical facilities, and renewable-powered production models.
