BGF invests in a range of ambitious businesses across the UK and Ireland, from earlier-stage SMEs to those with £100m+ revenues. We are, however, the UK’s most active investor in visible scaleups (by number of investments) and the top institutional investor in female-founded scaleups.
Scaleups are businesses that have increased their turnover or employee count (or both) by more than 20% over a three-year period. According to the ScaleUp Institute, there were 33,955 scaleups operating in the UK by the end of 2020—up 26% since it first started to track the scaleup landscape in 2015. These scaling businesses account for 50% of total SME turnover output, despite representing just 0.6% of the SME population. According to Scale Ireland, there’s a combined total of 2,218 Irish startup and scaleup companies, employing around 55,000 people.
ScaleUp Institute is a private sector-led, not-for-profit organisation, working to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow your business. It focuses on collaborating with policy makers, corporates, finance players, educators and government, at a local and national level. BGF is working with the ScaleUp Institute to bring together scaleup leaders from across the UK, to accelerate good growth.
In 2021, we had over 6,000 attendees join us for ScaleUp Week, a three-day virtual event bringing together some of the brightest minds in business. The week’s sessions covered a range of topics affecting scaleup businesses, from how to grow your company culture to navigating the road to net zero, with speakers including:
Watch our video below to catch up on all the highlights from Scaleup Week 2021.
Join some of the most ambitious entrepreneurs in Ireland. We’re always looking for the next brilliant business to back.
