Blissful ambitions for Scotland

Blis, a global programmatic advertising company, will further develop its presence in Scotland following support from Scottish Enterprise.

The company will establish an R&D Centre in Scotland, enhancing the skills base of the country’s already vibrant digital sector.  Blis’ plans for Scotland have been supported by a £1.4m grant award from Scottish Enterprise.

As part of the Blis R&D project in Scotland, the software developed will be able to evaluate the success of targeted advertising campaigns and optimise future advertising campaigns accordingly.

The company is initially investing in 14 high value research and development roles to support the business in continuously evolving its technology, with nine roles already hired.

“During the past years, we have made significant investments in our technology to build our integrated planning and buying platform without relying on personal data,” said Greg Isbister, CEO at Blis.

“The major investment we received from Scottish Enterprise will help us speed up delivery of our commitment to investing in our team and technology to drive growth.  Scotland is my home country and I’m incredibly excited to support Scottish Enterprise as we aim to hire some of the most talented technology professionals and help the sector grow even further.”

Headquartered in London, Blis is the audience-first platform that does not rely on personal data.  Blis layers its location data on hundreds of other powerful data signals, all aggregated and anonymised, to better understand what people do, their spending habits and lifestyle factors to ultimately give major brands and their media agencies the full picture of their audiences and enable them to reach consumers at scale.

The company operates in more than 40 offices across five continents.

Scottish Development International (SDI) inward investment specialists have worked closely with Blis to support the company’s plans for Scotland by introducing them to key academic stakeholders and assisting the firm with property searches.

Mark Hallan, Director of Global Investment at Scottish Enterprise, said: “Digital technology is going to be critical to our economic growth over the next decade.

“Scotland is increasingly renowned internationally as a digital tech leader due to its vibrant start-up scene and world-class universities.  The arrival of an innovative company such as Blis to Scotland will further enhance this sector and create high-valued, tech-related job opportunities for our workforce.

“Our SDI colleagues based in London have been pleased to work with Blis and promote Scotland as an ideal destination for growth and R&D capabilities.  Alongside our partners, we will continue to highlight the incredible opportunities that exist in Scotland for internationally-minded companies.”

The announcement from Blis is the latest good news for inward investment in Scotland.

In May, SDI statistics revealed that more than 7,500 planned real living wage jobs had been generated by inward investment in FY21/22, with 113 investment projects in Scotland supported, 39 of which were investors locating in the country for the first time.