ePass Aims to Be Scotland’s Top GovTech Scaleup After Reporting £1M Revenue in First Year

EDINBURGH, Scotland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 25, 2026--

ePass has set its sights on being Scotland’s most successful GovTech scaleup, following the GovTech startup winning one of the largest CivTech challenges to date, and its tobacco and vapes retailers register being deployed in 6 months, while reporting £1m of revenue in its first twelve months.

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Founded in 2024 by CEO James Buchan and CTO Chris Renga following the CivTech win, ePass is a GovTech platform for licensing, registration, and permitting, currently rolling out across the public sector. The company was one of the first private organisations to be onboarded onto the Scottish Government’s cloud platform and will be the first live service on the Scottish Government’s ‘App for Scotland’ later this year.

Now live across the Scottish Government as a core digital component serving all 32 local authorities and more than 15,000 businesses to date, ePass expects the number to rise to around 80,000 by next year.

James Buchan, Co-founder and CEO of ePass, said: “Scotland has had a licensing problem for decades. Licensing and registration are essential public services, but too often the underlying processes have been fragmented, paper-heavy and difficult to manage consistently. ePass was created to reduce that friction, and we are now a core component of Scotland's national digital infrastructure. We are now helping public bodies move towards a more reusable, consistent and scalable model for licensing, permitting and registration.”

Commenting on the recently announced ‘Scotland’s AI Strategy 2026-2031’, James Buchan added: “Responsible AI in public services will depend on the quality of the underlying data, workflows and governance. That is where platforms such as ePass can play an important enabling role: creating structured, auditable service data from processes that have historically been fragmented or paper-based.”

The UK public sector is valued at around £50 billion and ePass CEO Buchan sees considerable opportunities for growth outside Scotland. “What is really exciting for ePass”, continued Buchan, “is the scope for expansion, not only into other areas of the public sector, but beyond Scotland into UK-wide and international markets.”

ePass has made a number of senior hires in 2026, with Bjorn Gisbertz joining the company as Director of Public Sector Strategy, and Aaron Drummond joining as Growth Lead. Gisbertz brings experience from elected office, public administration and public-sector digital transformation across Northern Europe, while Drummond will lead growth strategy in the UK and overseas.

ePass is actively engaging with venture capital and investor communities and is likely to embark on its first external fundraising round later this year. The company is also currently making a number of engineering, delivery and operational hires.

For more information, please visit: https://epass.tech/

Left to right are ePass co-founders James Buchan (CEO) and Chris Renga (CTO)

LONDON (AP) — The estranged husband of former Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon pleaded guilty Monday to embezzling more than 400,000 pounds ($540,000) from the Scottish National Party when he was its chief executive.

Peter Murrell, 62, was remanded into custody after admitting in the High Court in Edinburgh that he used the money to buy a motorhome, two cars and luxury goods.

Murrell was originally arrested in April 2023 in an investigation into the SNP’s finances and was charged in April 2024.

Sturgeon, who dominated Scottish politics for almost a decade, was cleared of wrongdoing last year, about two years after she unexpectedly resigned as first minister of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government. She served eight years in the role.

Murrell and Sturgeon announced they were divorcing last year after about 15 years of marriage.

The investigation cast a cloud over Sturgeon for almost two years and raised questions about the party’s leadership as Police Scotland probed how more than 600,000 pounds ($810,000) designated for a Scottish independence campaign was spent.

Former party treasurer Colin Beattie was also cleared. He and Sturgeon were arrested and questioned about three years ago and released on bail.

Sturgeon led her party to dominance in Scottish politics and refashioned the SNP from a largely one-issue party into a dominant governing force with liberal social positions. She guided her party during three U.K.-wide elections and two Scottish elections, and led Scotland through the coronavirus pandemic, winning praise for her clear, measured communication style.

But Sturgeon left office amid divisions in the SNP without meeting her main goal — independence from the United Kingdom for the nation of 5.5 million people.

Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, center arrives at Edinburgh High Court, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Monday May 25, 2026. ( Jane Barlow/PA via AP)

FILE - Scotland's First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, is interviewed, May 17, 2022, in Washington. BBC reports on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023 Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is to resign after 8 years in office (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)