Scaleup Week announced
19 April 2021
PRESS RELEASE
BGF & SCALEUP INSTITUTE ANNOUNCE SCALEUP WEEK: THE BUSINESS PLAN 18TH – 20TH MAY
- Major new UK initiative launched to drive recovery, renewal and long term investment in high-potential businesses
- Scaleup Week: The Business Plan has active engagement from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Prime Minister’s Build Back Better Council
London: Today, BGF and the ScaleUp Institute announce the launch of a major new nationwide initiative, Scaleup Week: The Business Plan taking place 18th – 20th May. The Scaleup Week represents a national moment to address critical challenges as we recover economically from the pandemic, to help business not just survive but thrive and ensure we have a fully funded plan to drive investment nationwide.
Scaleup Week will convene a series of conversations on the future of scale-ups, innovation and investment throughout the country. It is being driven by business for business, led by BGF with the ScaleUp Institute and has the active engagement of the Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Prime Minister’s Build Back Better Council.
This major initiative comes at a crucial time for the UK with the urgent need to drive swift recovery and renewal, as well as long term investment. The week-long series of virtual events will see the leaders of industry, investors, banks, academics and policymakers coming together. They will explore how the UK’s high-potential businesses can support the levelling-up agenda, drive progress in our communities, foster diverse workforces, achieve the transition to net zero and more.
From 18th May to 20th May, Scaleup Week: The Business Plan will host a series of main agenda virtual events including the following themes:
- Enriching the community: how scaleups are a force for local renewal
- Navigating the journey to net zero: how growing businesses will play their part
- Finding a purpose and embedding a culture: lessons for leaders and teams
- Unlocking ingenuity: how to create fertile conditions for innovation
- Making Global Britain a reality: can growing businesses attract worldwide attention?
- Focusing on skills: equipping today’s workforce for tomorrow’s challenges
- No more glass ceilings: removing barriers to a diverse entrepreneur community
Stephen Welton, Executive Chairman at BGF, comments: “This is a pivotal moment for the UK economy with significant hurdles still to overcome but major and transformational opportunities ahead for the country’s growth businesses. Our high-potential firms not only represent innovation, but also how the future business landscape can be shaped, and that needs major investment to fully unlock progress across the county – this new initiative is here to help deliver a more diverse, cleaner and fast-growth future for UK scaleups.”
Business Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, comments: “There is no question that this has been a challenging year for British businesses, but we also now have a moment of great opportunity with firms shaking up how they do things and adopting new tech and ways of working.
“I look forward to speaking to some of Britain’s brightest business leaders at Scaleup Week and hearing more about how we can help them to innovate, export, create jobs, generate wealth, and build back better from the pandemic, using government support like our new Help to Grow Management Scheme.”
Irene Graham, CEO at ScaleUp Institute, comments: “Scaleups exist across every sector, region and locality of the UK generating £1.1 trillion per annum and employing 3.2 million people. They are vital to our recovery and our future economy, being our most innovative, international and productive companies. This inaugural ScaleUp Week will focus on what continues to need to be done at national and local level to foster scaleups, and what more can be done to propel their growth and the opportunities they have both at home and abroad. We are delighted to be bringing the ecosystem together at this critical juncture to galvanise further action.”
At the time of launch, confirmed speakers include the following – with more to be announced:
- Stephen Welton, Executive Chairman, BGF
- Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Secretary of State for BEIS
- Johnny Boufarhat, CEO & Founder, Hopin
- Irene Graham OBE, CEO, ScaleU p Institute
- Noel Quinn, Group Chief Executive, HSBC
- Vin Murria OBE, founder, Advanced Computer Software & investor
- Baroness Brown of Cambridge, UK Low Carbon Business Ambassador and CCC board member
- Dr Linda Yueh, Economist, Writer & Broadcaster
- Amanda Solloway MP, Minister for Science and Innovation
- Daniel Korski CBE, CEO, Public
- Colin Mayer CBE, Peter Moores, Professor of Management Studies, University of Oxford
- Ian Simm, CEO, IMPAX
- Adam Hale, Chair, Arctic Shores & ScaleUp Institute
The full programme of events and registration for attendees can be found here.
– ENDS –
Notes to Editors
About BGF
- BGF was set up in 2011 and has invested over £2.5 billion in nearly 400 companies, making it the most active investor in the UK.
- BGF invests across the spectrum of high growth companies from earlier stage, to growth, to the smaller end of the AIM market working with a wide range of co-investors, universities and other stakeholders.
- BGF set up in Ireland in 2018 with a €250m fund, looking to replicate a similar regional investment model across the country.
- BGF is a minority, non-controlling equity partner with a long term patient outlook on investments, based on shared long-term goals with the management teams it backs.
- BGF today invests in growing businesses in the UK and Ireland through its network of 16 offices.
- In 2018, Canada launched its equivalent – the Canadian Business Growth Fund – and in 2019, Australia did the same, both based on BGF’s funding model.
- bgf.co.uk
- Social media: @BGFinvestments
About ScaleUp Institute
The ScaleUp Institute is a private-sector led, not-for-profit organisation focused on collaborating with policy makers, corporates, finance players, educators and Government at a local and national level. Our mission is to help the UK to become the best place in the world to grow a business as well as start one, and to enable our existing high growth businesses to ‘scale up’ even further. The Institute was founded in 2015 to help the UK improve its record in scaling companies which lags behind its major competitors after evidence showed that a one per cent boost to the UK scaleup population would boost the economy by hundreds of billions. The latest data shows that 33,445 Scaleup Businesses generate a total turnover of £1.1 trillion to the UK economy – 50% of the total contribution from all SMEs.
- https://www.scaleupinstitute.org.uk
- Social Media: @scaleupinst
- Media Contact: [email protected]