The Scottish National Investment Bank was in the spotlight again last week.

It found itself in sharp focus following the collapse of Scottish technology company pureLiFi.

There is never any shortage of people looking to stand up and criticise when the taxpayer-backed Scottish National Investment Bank loses money as a result of the failure of one of its portfolio companies.

However, it was good to hear the institution provide a reality check on what its role actually is, and what that means in terms of risk, including in relative terms compared with mainstream commercial funders.

Kenny Craig and Kevin Mapstone of BTG were appointed joint administrators of pureLiFi Limited by the directors of the company on August 31.

They noted the 14-year-old Scottish telecoms firm that devised an alternative wireless technology to WiFi and 5G entered administration “after failing to raise further development capital”, as they announced “the immediate redundancy of all 42 employees at the business”.

The Scottish National Investment Bank told The Herald that its total commitment to pureLiFi is £15m and £14.7m of that has been drawn down. 

The administrators observed that since 2012 “the business is understood to have raised more than £35 million in investment from more than a dozen investors, funds and banks”.

pureLiFi, based in Leith, was established in 2012 by Professor Harald Haas, who remained a director of the business.

The administrators said: “The business was at the leading edge of a new, super-secure light-based wireless communications technology, and had shifted into manufacturing products based on its own........

© Herald Scotland