Following Cooper Parry’s successful partnership with Tech Nation of Upscale 6.0, we’re delighted to support the tech scale-ups participating on its new Upscale 7.0 programme.
Tech Nation provides ambitious tech entrepreneurs and scaling businesses with the coaching, content and community they need on their journey; fuelling their growth so they can transform societies and economies in a positive manner.
Now in its seventh year, Tech Nation’s latest Upscale programme consists of 31 of the UK’s best performing, most promising tech scale-ups.
This dynamic cohort is made up of businesses who have demonstrated an average growth rate of 250% and cover a broad range of sectors; from healthtech and edtech, to foodtech and cybersecurity. The cohort has already raised an incredible £311m and that’s just for starters.
The six-month government-backed Upscale programme is designed to support and scale the most promising mid-stage tech companies in the UK. Companies accepted into the Upscale programme receive over 60 hours of support at world-class coaching sessions (delivered by over 20 expert scale coaches), attend networking events with key stakeholders, peers, corporates and investors, and have access to a range of online resources, designed to tackle fundamental scaling challenges around culture, talent, international expansion and financing.
We’ve continued our partnership with Tech Nation following the success of the earlier round. As Steve Leith, our Head of Tech & High Growth says;
“Giving scale-ups the opportunity to learn together on their high growth journey is really valuable. We know they need advisers who are experienced in dealing with the varying challenges of rapid growth and fundraising. It is at this time that risks and opportunities present themselves during diligence and we ensure our clients are ready for whats coming.
“The scale-ups in the Upscale cohort are typically reaching that inflexion point, where professionalising their finance function is coming into focus, and solving finance-related challenges is becoming critical to their next phase of growth.
“Often, it’s at this point that scale-ups consider working with an accounting firm with the right experience and fee levels to support the next stage. We are that firm. Our Tech & High Growth team only work with companies in high growth mode. And we have the culture to match the scale-up mindset to boot.”
HOW DO WE SUPPORT SCALE-UPS?
Despite being consistent in their growth stage, the Upscale cohort won’t all be facing the same challenges. So, understanding strategy and trajectory comes first, then, we’ll be able to flush out which finance-related challenges they should (and shouldn’t) be worrying about.
That could include:
1) Considering whether they need to appoint a new adviser who can cover audit and tax-related matters, giving them speed of advice when they need it most;
2) Joining up this work with their R&D claims process to drive cost and time savings;
3) Supporting their fundraising activity at Series A or B with our specialist Raising Finance team; or
4) Finding solutions to any issues around corporate expansion, including international aspects like market entry, transfer pricing and IP considerations, employing people across borders, permanent establishment issues, cross border VAT and sales-taxes, and share option planning.
We can’t wait to get stuck into helping this cohort of amazing companies and look forward to making a difference to their business.
BE THE FIRST TO GET EXCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS
