Heriot-Watt taps start-up founders to boost innovation pipeline

Heriot-Watt has appointed two entrepreneurs to help scale the next generation of Scottish start-ups and strengthen links between academia, industry and investors.

Gemma Stuart, founder of health start-up Gut Wealth, and Jessica Mullen, an exited founder and angel investor, have joined the university as Entrepreneurs in Residence within the Global Research, Innovation and Discovery (GRID) ecosystem.

The pair bring experience in building and growing businesses and will focus on helping early-stage ventures navigate commercial challenges and secure funding.

Stuart is scaling Gut Wealth, having recently secured seed investment. Mullen founded and exited her own company and now works with startups as an investor and advisor, including angel syndicate Apollo Informal Investment.

Their appointments mark an expansion of the advisory team, bringing experienced founders into direct collaboration with advisors to better support academic and student entrepreneurs.

Stuart said: “Heriot-Watt has a real entrepreneurial spirit and has recognised that founders need practical, real-world support to turn ideas into commercially viable businesses.

“With my recent experience of starting and scaling, I’m looking forward to helping the university’s entrepreneurs navigate the realities of reaching commercial readiness, accessing the right funding at the right time, building their networks and helping create a viable pathway to raising investment.”

Mullen added: “I’ve founded, scaled and exited a business and now, as an angel investor, I understand what funders are looking for.

“There’s a real opportunity for Heriot-Watt to strengthen its pipeline from early-stage ideas through to investment-ready companies.

“I’m particularly passionate about supporting more women into entrepreneurship and ensuring a broader range of founders can access the funding they need - as the data, outlined in the Pathways report, clearly shows businesses founded by women still don’t receive the same levels of investment.”

Both founders will work directly with students, researchers and spinouts. They will offer mentoring and advice on growth, customer development and fundraising.

Danielle Moran, incubator manager at Heriot-Watt’s Edinburgh Business School, said the appointments reflect a wider ambition to strengthen Scotland’s innovation ecosystem.

“Our Entrepreneurs in Residence bring exactly the kind of experience our researchers and students need; they’ve built businesses, they’ve scaled and they understand how to attract investment.

“By embedding that expertise within the university, we’re helping to bridge the gap between research and real-world impact, and supporting more companies to grow and succeed in Scotland.”

The initiative forms part of Heriot-Watt’s broader push to enhance its enterprise offering and support a more diverse and commercially focused pipeline of startups emerging from Scottish universities.