Start-up to scale-up and
creating the future Unicorns
Maxine Adam
Head of Strategic Development &
Coordinator H2020 Innovation Services
Enterprise Europe Network
Definition of a scale-up
A number of different definitions
OECD
a ‘scale-up’ is an enterprise with average annualised growth in
employees or turnover greater than 20 per cent per annum over a
three year period, and with more than 10 employees at the
beginning of the observation period.
The international evidence is clear that a small
number of high-growth firms are vital to driving job
growth and overall economic growth.
“six per cent of UK businesses with the highest
growth rates generated half of the new jobs created
by existing businesses between 2002 and 2008.”
Nesta
The key reasons why companies are unable to scale
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Finding employees to hire who have the skills they need
Building their leadership capability
Accessing customers in other markets / home market
Accessing the right combination of finance
Navigating infrastructure
Map of the UK's top 50 fastest
growing science-based
companies
 Businesses based across the UK
 Scale-ups also found in all sectors
 Can be major contributors to local
economies, acting as role models
and inspiring others
Source: Sherry Coutu CBE: The scale-up report on UK economic growth
Moving start-ups to scale-ups
Just providing funding isn’t sufficient
• need to wrap support around a business
• connect them to opportunities
Working with the right companies
• Might not be the companies that traditionally seek public support
• Need to look in different places
Need to work with the national ecosystem and beyond
• Need to work with other actors in the ecosystem
• Scale-up businesses need tailored support – connections, insight
• Levels of finance often beyond any one country - >€100m per company
Innovate UK support
• Finding employees to hire who have the skills they need
• Piloting the ICURe programme – enabling university based early stage
businesses to bring in the staff they need to grow
• Building their leadership capability
• Innovate2Succeed programme to enhance capacity
• Accessing customers in other markets / home market
• First customer – SBRI and procurement models
• Access to international markets – Enterprise Europe Network
• Accessing the right combination of finance
• Grant funding (plus loan and equity soon) and connections to investors –
Venturefest (investor events) and Growth Showcase(investor platform)
• Navigating infrastructure
• Helping businesses navigate the innovation system - Enterprise Europe Network
and Knowledge Transfer Network – “no wrong door”
European Innovation Council
consultation presentation
Could the European Innovation Council be the solution?
• Simplify and co-ordinate access to the current EU innovation offer?
• A truly bottom-up SME Instrument?
• Fill the EU gaps in support for innovation to better support start-ups
to scale-ups?
• Strategic advice to improve innovation environments (e.g. on
regulation, policies, practices)?
• What is the European added value?
www.innovateuk.gov.uk
[email protected]