Global summit will entice investors into scale-ups – Daily Business

Scotland’s first-ever Global Investment Scale Up Summit will take place early next year in a bid to encourage investment from a wider range of investors.

The business-led summit, supported by both the UK and Scottish governments and organised by Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE), will take place in January, building on the momentum of last year’s flagship Global Investment Summit.

The audience will be senior-level domestic and international investors, with a focus on high growth scale up businesses.

It will also demonstrate the strong partnership that exists in Scotland between industry, governments and its world-class university sector.

The summit builds on the findings of Shane Corstorphine’s Scaling Scotland report, which highlights the challenge of turning Scotland’s strong pipeline of start-ups and scale-ups into a greater number of larger, globally successful businesses.

That report identified funding, talent, business capability and access to markets as key factors in enabling more Scottish businesses to scale.

The summit will seek to address these challenges by bringing more than 100 investors together with high-growth Scottish businesses, creating opportunities to connect ambitious companies with the capital and networks they need to grow.

SFE chief executive Sandy Begbie said: “Scotland has an incredibly strong pipeline of ambitious, high-growth businesses but, as highlighted in Shane Corstorphine’s report, if we are serious about building a stronger, more productive economy, we need to do more to support those businesses to start, scale and succeed here.

“This summit will provide a unique opportunity to put some of our most exciting and fastest-growing businesses directly in front of global investors.

“Bringing more than 100 investors together with ambitious Scottish businesses is about more than securing individual investment deals – it is about demonstrating the depth and quality of the opportunity that exists in Scotland.

“This flagship event will build on the momentum generated by last year’s Global Investment Summit and establish a much stronger narrative around Scotland as a place where businesses can grow to scale.

“It will be the ideal opportunity to demonstrate that Scotland has the talent, businesses, infrastructure and investment opportunities to compete on a global stage.”

Mr Corstorphine commented: “Scotland has never had more fantastic start-ups being built here, and that is a credit to the founders and everyone who has backed them. The harder part is what comes next.

“Too few of those companies make the jump from promising scale-up to global business, and a big part of the reason is that great companies and the right kind of investment are not finding each other.

“Scotland has around 1,520 scale-ups turning over less than £5m, but only 85 above £50m. This summit puts ambitious companies directly in front of the investors who can help close that gap, and I’m delighted to support it.”

Investor and Scotland’s chief entrepreneur, Ana Stewart, added: “Scotland is not short of ambitious start-up businesses and in my role as chief entrepreneur, I see on a daily basis the strength of that talent.

“But entrepreneurs face real challenges when they come to scaling their business and to realise their potential – for their businesses and the wider economy – we need to do more to address some of those challenges.

“This summit a great way to elevate the scaleup opportunities that exist in Scotland. It also represents the first of a series of more closely co-ordinated activities and events planned over the year, aimed at shaping Scotland’s reputation as a leading location to both start and scale a business.”