Sir Tom Hunter-backed Scale Up Scotland initiative launches latest search for 'next Scottish unicorn'

Initiative supported by experts “telling it like it is – the highs and the lows”.

An initiative “by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs” driven by veteran Scottish businessman Sir Tom Hunter to help create the next Scottish “unicorn” – a tech firm with a valuation of at least $1 billion (£794 million) – is calling for high-aiming company founders to apply to join its next cohort.

Sir Tom’s “proactive venture philanthropy” vehicle The Hunter Foundation (THF) has launched the next phase of its Scale Up Scotland programme recruiting for its fifth cohort of a dozen scaling businesses. It added that across the first four cohorts – the latest of which is still under way – the businesses have grown £500m of incremental revenue, created 3,000 jobs, and secured £300m in funding.

The programme is aimed at high-potential firms headquartered in Scotland with a minimum turnover of at least £1m, and “who can demonstrate strong year-on-year growth and an ambition to build a global business”. It is among related THF ventures including Pre-Scaler, Scale Up Scotland and ScaleUpScotland2.0 complementing its support for Scottish Edge.

Sir Tom says: 'This is by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs; tailored to meet their needs and support them through accelerated growth.' Picture: contributed.

THF says the core Scale Up Scotland programme, which it adds was fully endorsed by the Scale Up Institute in 2022, each lasts 18 months, and is aimed at entrepreneurs with the potential and desire to grow sales beyond £20m to £30m. It also said the initiative is “results oriented, delivered, and supported by leading entrepreneurs, expert business practitioners and facilitators telling it like it is – the highs and the lows”. Additionally, the “undoubted” benefits of strong peer-to-peer learning are embedded throughout, and participants “need to demonstrate continual development both of themselves and their organisation throughout”.

THF also said that whilst its central theme is building leadership capability for scale, it also takes a deep dive into key drivers of scaling a business, and topics covered include business transformation, strategic people planning, leadership development, effective communication skills, customer insight, operations management, risk and incident-management, fundraising, internationalisation, sales negotiation, building effective teams, and decision-making.

The time commitment is ten residential 1.5-day events and is operated from THF’s headquarters at Blair Estate, with participants contributing a fee of £6,000 plus VAT.

Sir Tom said: “This is by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs; tailored to meet their needs and support them through accelerated growth. With a little bit of help from us, and our amazing ‘entrepreneurs in residence’, these businesses have taken on significant challenges and grown exponentially. Fundamentally, the peer-to-peer support across the cohorts, coupled with knowledge and insight from entrepreneurs who have ‘been there and done it’, we think makes a significant contribution to supporting businesses scale.”

Ian McKenzie, chief executive of Trojan Energy, which formed part of cohort three and recently raised £26m, also commented: “Scale Up has given us access to industry experts and contacts that we could not have afforded or had access to otherwise. This has resulted in us making positive strategic changes within our business, and gaining access to contract opportunities. It is also hugely beneficial to speak regularly with a group of founders and CEOs who are facing the same challenges as you on a daily basis, but can offer insight and experience from different industries on how to overcome these.” The closing date for applications is February 29, with the programme starting April 25.