Alan Muir

Alan James Muir is a long-standing figure in the Scottish and international life-science investment community, with roughly 25 years of experience as an angel investor and early-stage company builder. He is the Director and Co-Founder of Seven Hills Venture Partners Limited (SHVP) — an Edinburgh-rooted life-science financing and advisory business (Companies House SC239385, incorporated in 2002) whose work has spanned corporate-transaction advice, product licensing and partnering, IPO valuation, due diligence and business-plan preparation for entrepreneurs, life-science companies, universities, venture-capital and private-equity firms and angel investors. The firm's name reflects Edinburgh, the "city of seven hills," and remains the origin of his shvp.co.uk email and Edinburgh (0131) phone line.

His earlier career combined public-sector, international and investment roles: he has worked with the British Embassy in Beijing and with the Zhejiang and Jiangsu municipal/provincial governments, giving him unusually deep China ties for a Scottish investor, and he spent time with Innovation Centres Scotland and with the quoted Scottish investor Braveheart Investment Group PLC. That mix of embassy, regional-government and institutional-investment experience underpins his positioning as someone who can connect early Scottish science ventures to funding, management support and cross-border (particularly Chinese) partners.

Today he is based in the Dundee area (Longforgan) and sits on the boards of several Scottish companies. Companies House records list him as an active director of Castle Rock Ventures Limited (SC482885, Dundee — appointed September 2019), River View Partners Limited (SC723320) and BCERTA Ltd (SC355831), and he has held past directorships at a range of other early-stage Scottish entities. He is described by those who know him as very knowledgeable on the funding and management of early-stage companies, especially in life sciences.

• Backs founders at "day zero." He has publicly framed his mission around how hard it is for first-time UK founders to raise when there is "no team, no product and no customers," and has put money into entrepreneurs "just stepping out of the lab or leaving a job."
• Small, catalytic early cheques. Associated reporting points to ~£25,000 first cheques designed to get lab- and job-leavers off the ground, rather than large priced rounds.
• Explicit tilt toward female founders — his day-zero backing is described as directing at least half of awards to women founders.
• Life sciences and health first. Consistent with SHVP's advisory heritage and his life-science reputation, his focus centres on biotech/health and adjacent early-stage technology.
• Scotland + China bridge. He markets access to contacts and capital in Scotland and, increasingly, China, positioning himself as a route to cross-border funding, collaborators and ideas.
• Hands-on board involvement. He typically takes a director role in the companies he backs, reflecting an active, operator-style approach rather than passive angel cheques.