ivvi Notes: Scottish AI startup transforming learning for people around the world
ivvi Notes has developed pioneering software with global potential, which transforms the spoken word into visual mind maps in real time, helping dyslexic and neurodiverse learners achieve their full potential.
Read time: 5 mins Added: 04/08/2026
From bedroom floor to award winning innovation
Edinburgh-based ivvi Notes was founded by husband-and-wife team Darius Namdaran and Jo Lee after they were inspired by their daughter’s struggles with dyslexia. They found the solution in mind mapping, a visual technique for organising information that’s recommended by organisations including the British Dyslexia Association.
Using mind mapping, their daughter was able to thrive at school and win a place at university. That experience sparked a mission and Darius and Jo became passionate advocates for mind mapping. The couple spent the next seven years coaching and training thousands of dyslexic students and adults to use this transformational skill.
"For people with dyslexia or ADHD, it can be a huge challenge to process everything that’s said in a lecture or meeting. Using mind mapping, you extract key words and link them together to create a structured visual representation that’s much easier to understand. We realised that there are 800,000 children just in the UK who are struggling silently alone, thinking there must be something wrong with them. So, we set our goal to teach a million children with dyslexia to mind map by 2030."
Darius Namdaran, Co-founder, ivvi Notes
It was a request from their mind mapping community that provided the initial inspiration for ivvi, which stands for Intelligent Voice to Visual Interface. Students told them they were spending hours after lectures translating their written notes into mind maps, which was a frustrating and exhausting experience. It was a ‘eureka moment’ that prompted Darius and Jo to create an AI-powered tool that could record audio and transcribe it into a mind map in real time.
Community-backed growth
To fund ivvi Notes’ development, they turned to the community they had built over nine years of coaching. Eleven families, all with personal connections to dyslexia, invested between £5,000 and £75,000 each, raising a total of £250,000 in seed funding.
"At first, we took the traditional route of pitching to angel investors, and while there was a lot of interest, we realised it was people who really related with dyslexia, either through their own experiences or their children’s, who shared our vision,” explains Jo.
"So, we started to speak to the families and professionals that we'd linked with over the years. These were people who knew us, they'd worked with us, they trusted us and they understood the vision for ivvi."
Jo Lee, Co-founder and COO, ivvi Notes
The investment led to three years of work with an app developer, spanning development, testing and optimisation, culminating in the launch of ivvi Notes in November 2024. A key milestone occurred when the UK government approved ivvi for university students with dyslexia and ADHD, which meant it would be fully funded by the Disabled Students' Allowance, a UK government grant that covers the extra study-related costs students face due to a disability, long-term health condition, mental health issue or specific learning difficulty (like dyslexia).
The software can also now be funded through an Access to Work grant, the government scheme that helps people get or stay in work if they have a physical or mental health condition or disability. The company is now piloting in schools across England and Scotland, and has applied to join a £23 million government pilot on AI in education.
And Bank of Scotland has supported the couple throughout their entrepreneurial journey. "We started banking with Bank of Scotland when we got married 32 years ago," says Jo.
"It has been with us through the journey to develop and grow ivvi Notes, providing business accounts, credit cards, a Business Interruption Loan through COVID and providing reliable banking support throughout. That support has grown with us as we've grown, from two 20-somethings getting married. It's been there for every iteration of life."
Jo Lee, Co-founder and COO, ivvi Notes
A lifeline for learners
Since launching, subscriptions to ivvi Notes have grown by approximately 12 per cent month-on-month, with users in the UK, Europe, America and Canada.
And in January 2026, the company achieved another breakthrough when ivvi Notes won the British Educational Training and Technology Show Award for SEND and Inclusion Resources and Services, with judges praising it as "a problem-driven technology designed to support dyslexic learners at all stages of learning”.
ivvi is the first AI-native product and the first Scottish company to win in the SEND category’s 15-year history. But it’s the impact on users that continues to drive Darius and Jo, who say: "Students tell us that we've transformed their entire learning experience. ivvi has become a lifeline for them."
And the next iteration of ivvi will unlock its global potential, making it accessible to users worldwide. Launching this year, the new ivvi Notes works in 120 languages and is 100% on-device, so users don’t need an internet connection. Not only that, the software will work on the kind of cheap, low-capacity devices which are commonly used in developing countries.
“These are old devices that are almost seen as obsolete in the UK, but they are widely exported to children in places like Africa,” says Darius. “We want ivvi to be available to everyone who needs it, irrespective of their resources. Everyone's included. That's our next mission.”
"ivvi Notes is a remarkable example of a purpose-driven business that is using the latest AI technology to make a positive change to people’s lives. It’s inspiring to see an ambitious Scottish business with such enormous potential, both in terms of its commercial and social impact. I look forward to following Darius and Jo as they continue on this exciting journey."
Eleanor Moorhouse, Client Insight and Performance, Lloyds Banking Group
You may also be interested in
Sustainable business
Supporting UK businesses transition to low-carbon, sustainable business models and to pursue clean growth opportunities whilst reducing costs at the same time.
Education Sector hub
For more tailored guidance for the Education sector, visit our specialised support hub.
While all reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information provided is correct, no liability is accepted by Bank of Scotland for any loss or damage caused to any person relying on any statement or omission. This is for information only and should not be relied upon as offering advice for any set of circumstances. Specific advice should always be sought in each instance.