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08 Oct 2025
Latest filing for insolvent UK laser company shows near-£40M debt owed to Scottish National Investment Bank.
M Squared Lasers owed a total of £64 million in liabilities when it ceased trading just over a month ago - with £40 million relating to finance provided by a combination of the taxpayer-funded Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) and Scottish Enterprise.
The latest figures are included in a detailed breakdown provided by the London-headquartered company administrator and restructuring specialist Interpath, which was appointed in late August to oversee the laser firm’s affairs.
In a “statement of affairs” filing with Companies House dated October 1, Interpath listed close to £21 million in assets, offset by £61.6 million owed to trade creditors, and £748,000 owed to 28 employees.
A list of trade creditors in that filing shows that when it ceased trading M Squared still owed £14.2 million to Santander bank, £37.5 million to SNIB, and £2.9 million to Scottish Enterprise.
Trade creditors
Back in November 2020 M Squared had represented the very first investment made by the newly formed SNIB, which provided £12.5 million in equity funding hailed by Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister at the time, as “a great example of the ambitious and innovative companies we have here in Scotland that will be key to our economic recovery and future prosperity”.
Subsequent filings indicate that SNIB invested a further £7.7 million in equity funding in September 2023, and provided £2 million in loan notes in December 2024.
The SNIB web site still lists M Squared as one of its portfolio companies, and indicates that its investment totalled £30.3 million.
And according to a separate March 2025 filing with Companies House, SNIB also owns a significant share (between 25 per cent and 50 per cent) of M Squared Technologies Group - the laser firm’s parent company.
Among M Squared Laser’s trade creditors are some familiar names from the photonics ecosystem, including Tucson-based AdValue Photonics, Taiwan’s HC Photonics, Barcelona’s ICFO photonics research center, the US-based fiber laser firm nLight, Newport Spectra-Physics, Thorlabs, and SPIE - the publisher of optics.org.
The biggest individual industry creditor appears to be the UK-based company Ashill Precision Engineering, which specializes in CNC machining of customized high-precision metal and plastic components. It is owed just over £1.2 million.
Having said that it was “rapidly exploring” options to sell the M Squared Lasers business and its assets, Interpath is yet to provide any update on that sales process, other than that it had received a number of enquiries.
Established in 2005 by former Coherent Scotland executives Graeme Malcolm and Gareth Maker, M Squared Lasers was best known for its tunable Ti:sapphire laser sources, which became widely used in research laboratories, in particular for quantum technology research where ultra-narrow wavelengths and stable output are critical.
Malcolm and Maker are both still listed as directors of both M Squared Lasers and M Squared Technologies Group.
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