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Programme

Upscale [2021]

Impact for scaleups

224

Companies Supported

985

Business leaders supported

9,500

New roles created

825

Peer connections made

£1.8bn

Raised by companies

Key sectors

Impact ventures / Social Impact Life Sciences & Biotech Building & Construction Manufacturing / Advanced Manufacturing Creative, digital, film, games & media Professional services Defence & security Technology & Communications Engineering / Advanced Engineering Transport & Logistics Environmental Science & Technology Farming, fisheries & forestry Finance Food & drink Healthcare

Each year 30 of the fastest-growth tech companies join a select cohort for a six-month Upscale programme curated by Tech Nation.  This programme which has an important element of peer networking has now been delivered to six cohorts with the seventh starting in October 2021.

The programme offers 60 hours of support led by scale coaches and has moved to a hybrid method of delivery for the foreseeable future in response to participants.  It will include a blend of online learning alongside in-person events to achieve maximum impact.

Also, in the past year the Upscale team has added initiatives to support founders and leaders including new learning sessions such as Becoming Net Zero to help them understand how they can work towards becoming more sustainable.  A partnership with TechTree provides companies with access to a diverse pool of engineering talent to support hiring challenges and diversify their technical teams.

While much of the learning is one-to-many the programme now includes 1:1 CEO coaching sessions with a global leadership coach, helping them improve their own leadership skills and develop frameworks to coach their own senior teams.

Two other elements have been added following learnings from the pandemic. As Covid highlighted how middle managers needed support in their first management roles, Upscale launched Springboard Futures to fill this need.  And as remote learning continued to drive innovation, Tech Nation has developed Openscale to launch in November as a platform for all participants to access all the learnings of Upscale plus important scaling information from the ecosystem.

Upscale has now supported 985 business leaders across 224 companies; it will reach 1,000 before the end of this year. 

Upscale [2021] website