''Sir Tom Hunter has invested in our business''

When companies claim that someone as important and influential has invested in their business, you should shut up, sit up and pay attention.

Sir Tom Hunter is probably Scotland's best known, modern day entrepreneur and through the Hunter Foundation, he has been doing great work helping to develop Scottish business.

Recently The Hunter Foundation took over the running of the Edge Fund. The Edge Fund was initially established by Scottish Enterprise, a government quango, to invest in start ups and early stage growth companies. Applicants pitch their businesses in a series of rounds to a panel of judges, who eventually decide as a quorum on who gets what. Prior to Hunter Foundation control, it had been rather over heavily influenced by the Entrepreneurial Spark incubator programme in that most of the awards had gone to ES participants.

Sir Tom Hunter is on the board of the Edge Fund. He is one of the judges.

However to claim that because the Edge Fund granted your business £50k, that Sir Tom Hunter is a direct investor in your business, is at best misleading. It is certainly wholly untrue.  Such a claim was  made very recently by Mara Seaweed, whose shambles of a crowdfunding campaign we have highlighted here before.

The claim went on that because he had invested, and Scottish Enterprise had also invested, that the business plan was sound. Hmmmm ........ the Edge Fund and SE invested in Log Six Systems Ltd a couple of years ago and that company and its Director are being investigated for fraud. At the time of the investment said Director was in fact a disqualified director. So much for their due diligence.