Business support programme aims to transform Scotland’s economy

A new programme aimed at supporting businesses with a high growth potential has been launched.

ScaleupScotland2.0, which has been developed by the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) and the Hunter Foundation, is looking to transform Scotland’s economy by increasing the number of successful scale-up businesses, growing the size and productivity of operations, and raising ambition.

Aimed at companies with the potential to achieve a turnover of more than £100 million, the programme will provide strategic development support to an initial cohort of 12 Scottish firms.

The package of support includes advice and mentoring from entrepreneurs and industry leaders such as Sir Tom Hunter, Lord Haughey and Theo Paphitis, as well as consultancy support which will identify and align each team on the challenges and opportunities they face.

Participation in regular retreats will also allow access to specialist and peer-to-peer interactive learning.

SNIB chair Willie Watt said: “The bank is committed to investing in innovation and industries of the future with the aim of supporting a more resilient and productive economy.

“We know that the success of high-growth business is critical to boosting Scotland’s productivity and this programme not only looks to address the financing gap for scale-up businesses, but will provide future business leaders with mentoring and expert advice to support their growth ambitions.

“This will enable CEOs to take a longer-term approach to value creation and help Scotland to build more home-grown businesses.”

Sir Tom added: “Through our existing ScaleUpScotland programme we recognised we needed to deliver a programme for the next level up and that’s what we are doing with the 2.0 version, offering far more tailored, one-to-one, sectoral growth support.

“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.

“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.”