An Edinburgh-based technology company which has invented micro-radio transmitters and receivers for aviation and space satellites is one of Scotland’s most exciting new generation companies.
Sofant Technologies is now raising new capital to scale-up its operations after refining the development of its proprietary RF MEMS technology and growing its team for over 13 years. MEMS stand for microelectromechanical systems.
Communication industry insiders say the company has the potential to become one of Scotland’s rare beasts: a technology unicorn with revenues of $1billion. The latest company report notes intangible assets of £12.8m.
“The board approved a licensing-led go-to-market strategy positioning Sofant to scale through partnerships with established integrators and manufacturers while retaining ownership of the intellectual property,” said its latest report.
With geopolitical situation across the global uncertain, it is essential that the UK has a sovereign capability in satcom-on-the-move technology. Sofant Technologies, with its research and development base in central Edinburgh, is viewed as a strategically important company.
TECHNOLOGY OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE
Sofant have developed MEMS, a minute device which is built on a layer of semiconductor wafer. The technology converts mechanical vibration to an electric signal. The company can manipulate the phasing of the radio signal, using a board of tiny phased array antenna, making it stable for long range frequencies,
Chief Executive Officer David Wither, an American-born director who has already achieved a successful exit for a communications technology business, is currently raising capital after receiving funding via the National Security Strategic Investment Fund, set up by the British Business Bank to support technologies which are critical to the nation’s interest.
Wither joined the business ten years ago after the innovation emerged from several PhD scientists at the Scottish Microelectronics Centre at King’s Buildings in Edinburgh.
While the technology has massive possibilities for future applications, including a substantially lighter in-flight communication system for commercial airlines, Wither says he is ‘laser focused’ on the Ka-Band satellite communications market.
“That’s our entry point into the market, so we have to succeed at that. Customers we’ve been talking to over the last few years are super interested in our antenna technology in this frequency band and for applications that would support high bandwidth communications in that frequency band.”
The technology is already being tested on geo-satellite communications in Europe and the United States, and is shown to reduce power consumption by up to 70 per cent.
“We know exactly who we’re going to talk to and what we want to get. Once you pick a focused effort, that helps narrow the field.”
Wither and his team are working on securing the funding and partnerships to bring the products to market.
PATIENT INVESTORS SEE LONG-TERM RETURNS
“We’ve had several challenges developing our ultra-low power, low-cost antenna which use less power and therefore less heat. We’ve been very well supported by our early stage patient investors, Kelvin Capital and Scottish Enterprise, who invested when Sofant emerged from the University of Edinburgh in 2013.”
“In 2019, we brought EMV Capital, based in London, who’s also been very supportive and patient.”
Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) is designed to provide investors with flexible and strategic investment opportunities in early-stage, high-growth companies. EMV raised equity funding of £6.25m in December 2025.
“We’re still EIS funded. We haven’t had any major VC institutional investment,” he says.
This is about to change as the firm takes its story to the key investment community.
“We’ve also been using EIS funding. We’re doing an EIS funding round right now and this funding round will come close to maxing out our EIS capacity. Then we need to go to look to larger institutional investors to take the company to the next level,” says Wither.
The capital raising is likely to take the firm into Q2 next year.
“It’s going quite well right now. Then we’ll look to raise institutional capital. But at that point in time, we will have eliminated all the technology risk.
The company is now filling up the sales pipeline, taking its technology into full fabrication and commercial delivery.
“In the early days, it’s difficult to sell too broadly because we just don’t have enough material. Our organisation isn’t quite scaled up. We got to hire salespeople and applications people and all these things to help to grow the business, to service those customers. We’re not quite there yet.”
Companies such as Raytheon, BAE Systems and Thales have tried to build these types of antenna systems, but don’t have the attention span to develop fundamentally new technologies.
SOFANT WORKING WITH EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY
Sofant has also been funded by the European Space Agency, via the UK Space Agency, which was saved from BREXIT damage by the intervention of Will Whitehorn, who is now the Sofant Technologies chair. The UK Space Agency provides the funds to ESA, and then ESA manages the technical programme.
“Our primary programme management interface is with the European Space Agency, but the funding comes from the UK Space Agency because we’re UK-based.”
So probably three or four years ago, we received a €7.3 million European Space Agency contract. We completed the first phase, and we are in negotiations about getting a €3 million extension.
“We expect that to be in place within the coming months. It looks like everything’s in place. So there’s been quite a lot of non-dilutive funding that’s gone in alongside the private capital.”
Wither and his team have now moved up gear from the innovation stage to the commercial delivery.
“That’s enabled us to get through this long technology development cycle to the point where we’re really about to take off. It’s been a long journey and you just can’t give up. You have to be dogged.”
He explains the difference in size which is critical when every milligram of payload for satellites is hugely expensive.
“If you ever get on commercial airplane, and you look towards the back of the plane, you’ll see like this big bulge on the back on the top. That’s where they’ll put the satellite antenna. If you count the windows under this, it’s like six or seven windows long. The size of this large table. We can do the same in shirt box: we’re dramatically reducing the size and the weight and the power consumption.”
Sofant Technologies, say Wither, is super competitive in terms of weight, power consumption and heat.
“There’s a whole ecosystem here in Scotland that has enabled this company to have a fighting chance to be a world leading supplier of cutting-edge technology. And this is typical of the stuff that will come out of Silicon Valley or something like that.
“I think we’ve got much better technology and the capability of the university system here in Scotland and a supportive investor base.”
STRONG TEAM OF TECHNICAL RADAR VETS
David Wither, born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, studied industrial engineering, and served with the US Army as an officer. He joined a small North Carolina company in a manufacturing role making power amplifiers for mobile phones. Siemens, Ericsson and Nokia were making early mobile phones, with a massive proliferation of mobile technology across Europe.
“I was running European sales for that business and very successfully. We did a really, it was just a lot of fun. And so we grew sales in Europe from less than £10m to over £100m in about a four-year period. The company went from about 200 people to around 2,000 people. It was an unbelievable period of growth and so much fun. And I thought it was easy.”
His next attempt at scaling wasn’t so simple. He became the CEO of another tech company in Sweden.
“It was just, lots of challenges, but I learned a lot and put that company on the AIM market. And it was a really interesting life. Ultimately, that was sold to a Japanese supplier.”
He arrived at Sofant Technologies excited by the technology.
“When I looked at this business, the first guy I called was Victor Steele. He’s our CTO. He called up Vic who looked at the business, helped with the due diligence, and said if this is what this is going to do, if you can make this work. It’s going to change the future of phased or antennas.
“When I got the job, he was my first hire. Within two weeks, we hired him. Then I immediately started working to recruit Andrew Christe, a Kiwi I’d known for 25 years, who is VP of engineering. He’s just world class as well, so it took us about two years to get him on site. But then he joined us.”
Wither had the compelling opportunity to try to do it again, using a welter of experience on how to handle rapid growth.
He has also pulled together a team of ‘salty guys’ with immense specialist expertise.
“It wasn’t just about being part of the growth. It was the smart people you were with. And to get a chance to work with people you really appreciate being around and with a technology and an industry you understand.”
The likes of Gary Morton, VP of Operations, has joined. He came from Wolfson Microelectronics, acquired by Cirrus. He developed a MEMS microphone which has been adopted by Apple.
“So he’s taken a MEMS, and done a whole MEMS process development and manufacturing supply chain development.”
The headcount is 42, representing over 20 countries, and the company has hired 10 graduates, several from Scottish universities, along with the more seasoned group of tech managers. Wither is looking to double this number in the next 18 months, with a focus of sales and marketing.
“Just between here and Glasgow, in this corridor, there’s still a lot of capability. I think we’re keen to reinvest in. We’d like to invest more.”
Sofant’s earlier funding was announced in Perry’s Gourley’s spring deals in focus.
Read more about why international investors are attracted to Scottish innovation in Gourley’s latest article for the magazine, ‘Well-priced Scots forms attracting overseas interest‘.
DealTrack
£6.25 million in an equity funding round led by investors, EMV Capital Partners, with additional participation from Scottish Enterprise, was recorded in our DealTrack Tables.
Date of deal completed: 24/12/2025 | Lead legal advisor: MBM Commercial