A new programme to “turn up the economic dial” in Scotland is being launched with the aim of getting more companies beyond the start-up stage and into the realm of £100 million revenue businesses.
The Hunter Foundation has linked up for the first time with the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) to introduce an advanced iteration of the ScaleupScotland programme run by the foundation for the past three years. The deadline for applications is September 19, after which 12 firms will be chosen to take part in the 12-month programme.
ScaleupScotland2.0 will provide strategic support to high-growth businesses across all sectors with advice and mentoring from an array of successful entrepreneurs such as TV Squared’s Calum Smeaton, gaming veteran Chris van der Kuyl, retailer Theo Paphitis and Lord Willie Haughey, the founder of City Facilities Management.
Sir Tom Hunter, who set up the Hunter Foundation to promote entrepreneurship in Scotland, said programmes such as Scottish EDGE run by Evelyn McDonald have been very successful in getting the youngest of businesses off the ground. The original ScaleupScotland – which to date has helped about 60 firms such as Bella & Duke and Ooni Pizza Ovens accelerate their sales growth – was designed for the “real high-fliers” coming out of Scottish EDGE and elsewhere.
“But on listening to the entrepreneurs there, there was another cohort, say maybe 20% again of that – the really ambitious ones – and they wanted something slightly different,” Sir Tom said. “So we’re really just listening to our market.”
He added: “Start-ups in and of themselves won’t move the economic dial, that’s to do with scale-ups. The data behind scale-ups and how they move the economic dial is quite incredible, so what are we doing in Scotland about it? Well, the answer was not that much.”
The package of support on offer is estimated to be worth £50,000, with the companies contributing £10,000 towards costs. SNIB chairman Willie Watt said this is an essential element.
“It shows a degree of seriousness on their part, and that they’re committed to the programme,” Mr Watt said. “This was something that the Hunter Foundation found was quite a useful way to ensure there was that commitment in the earlier programmes that they’ve run.”
An Oxford Economics report commissioned by the Hunter Foundation and released to widespread welcome in April 2021 highlighted Scotland’s lack of success with scale-ups as one of the key reasons for the country’s relatively poor economic performance, with GDP per head at 44 per cent of Singapore’s level, 48% of Ireland’s, 68% or Norway’s 75% of Denmark’s.
READ MORE: Hunter Foundation report is good starting point for debate on Scotland's future
Mr Watt said most start-ups in Scotland fail to realise their full potential. While a lack of funding is frequently cited as a major issue, other factors come into play as well.
“Part of it is about confidence and ambition,” he said. “I think there is a track record of companies getting to a reasonable size and then selling out, rather than having the having the confidence to go through with scaling up on their own.
“We do have some great examples in Scotland of companies doing that, but we just don’t have enough of them, so hopefully the programme will help with skills, building management teams, and building the skills that are required to raise capital.”
Sir Tom said ScaleupScotland2.0 will work with businesses from any sector: “The only criteria is they need to be super-ambitious.”
“Multiple studies, including our own commissioned by Oxford Economics, detail precisely why Scotland needs more scale-ups – this programme will provide precise, laser-focused support to high-growth businesses with massive ambition,” he added.
“Scotland fundamentally needs far more ambitious scale-ups and to enable them we have to offer the right support – our economy depends on scale-ups, they are the engine of growth and prosperity so if we want to deliver a 10-year growth strategy this is one starting point.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel