Scaleup programmes

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Programme

BizSmart

Leadership Capacity

Impact for scaleups

80+

Scaling businesses supported

£1.8m

finance raised

28%

average profit increase 12 months after programme

36%

won new procurement contracts

63%

identified new markets or products

Key sectors

Healthcare 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

BizSmart gives scaling business owners the tools they need to navigate their growth journey, increasing profits and value while also making their businesses easier to manage. Its structured scaleup system, the Entrepreneurial ScaleUp System (ESUS), is tailored to business needs, focusing on the major challenges to scaling identified by the ScaleUp Institute.

SmartBoards, its structured flagship service, provides peer-to-peer business support in scaling up. Bringing together participants from diverse backgrounds and non-competing sectors, it provides a structured framework to enhance leadership capability, strategic focus and execution. BizSmart continues to provide 1-2-1 coaching and SmartBoard peer groups, including CEO Mastery, its mastermind group and coaching programme for established business owners.

Smart90 is now the scalable route into the programme, with delivery built around a quarterly 90-day planning rhythm. Founders and their teams attend a half-day G90 Summit each quarter to set their priorities for the next 90 days, supported by the Smart90 software, monthly check-ins and the monthly ScaleUp Club to maintain focus and accountability between Summits.

The Smart90 software also provides AI-supported coaching informed by insights from 305 in-depth ScaleUp Radio founder interviews, representing around three million words of founder experience. This enables guidance to draw on the experiences and approaches of founders who have scaled their businesses.

Programme impact data has shown that active users of Smart90 achieved seven times greater net profit growth than average, while participants have identified new markets and products, started exporting and secured new procurement contracts. Participating businesses have also raised £1.8 million in finance.

BizSmart continues to expand the reach of its approach through accountants, coaches and business networks, enabling them to bring their own clients to the G90 Summit and use the Smart90 approach to support scaling businesses within their networks.

BizSmart has also continued to build its evidence base around the challenges facing scaling businesses. Its latest research, Scaleup Challenges II, analyses 305 in-depth founder interviews from the ScaleUp Radio podcast. The research identifies the transition from handing out individual tasks to handing over responsibility for whole outcomes as an important point in the scaling journey, typically occurring when businesses reach between 12 and 25 employees. It also highlights the importance of businesses focusing more narrowly before expanding further.

Its ScaleUp Radio podcast now has more than 650 episodes and over 60,000 downloads, providing a growing evidence base of founder experiences and insights. BizSmart is also publishing Quicker If I Do It, a business novel publishing on 28 November 2026, exploring how founders can become a constraint on the growth of their own business.

BizSmart website