SCOTLAND’S technology elite hogged the champagne circuit last week as two anchor events showcased the cream of the nation’s innovators.

Fifteen technology fledglings pitched for more than £30m at the Connect Investment Conference in Edinburgh on Monday and Tuesday, while 50 tech firms with average sales growth of 387% over the past five years were recognised in the Deloitte Fast 50 awards in Glasgow on Thursday.

Times have been tough since the dotcom bubble burst, but the consensus now is that business demand for security, compliance and convenience across their systems is returning some resilience to the market.

DNS, the Edinburgh IT security specialist that won the Deloitte Fast 50 awards with 3,767% turnover growth since 1999, has seen a surge in demand from the public sector and financial services companies required to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley, the US post-Enron law that stipulates firms must have a clear IT and audit trail for everything that happens in their organisation, including keeping e-mail records for at least three years. Graeme Cox, DNS managing director, said: “The requirement for risk management in the finance sector gets stronger every year, and in the public sector, the targets for e-government services set by Westminster are extremely demanding.”

Wisdom IT, the Livingston IT outsourcing company, made the Fast 50 by tripling sales to more than £3m in the past five years. Sales director Dave McConachie said: “Companies have now realised that a critical amount of business is being done via e-mail. It’s the heart of the business, so there needs to be support around those applications. That’s where we’ve seen growth and new technologies coming through.”

MGt, the Kirkcaldy-based customer services operator, has grown sales 764% since 1999 to £11.2m last year. The company handles consumer subscriptions to services such as pay-TV by phone, text message, interactive TV and web. Sales and marketing director Jamie MacKinlay said: “Customers want to be able to do something quickly and know it’s been done the first time. That’s what we’re trying to do with the technologies we’re developing.”

Axis-Shield, the listed Dundee diagnostics business, won a prize for featuring in every Scottish Deloitte Fast 50 since it was launched seven years ago. Sales have grown from around £15m in 1999 to £50m last year, although more than £40m has gone on research and development in the same period.

The company is now approaching profitability following a string of milestones, including the expected launch this month of an instant diagnostics kit for doctors’ surgeries.