ScaleUp Institute

About ScaleUp Institute

The ScaleUp Institute is a private sector-led, not-for-profit organization dedicated to making the United Kingdom the most advantageous environment for businesses to scale. It was incorporated on January 19, 2016.

The Institute was co-founded by serial entrepreneur and investor Sherry Coutu and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman in June 2015. The launch followed Coutu's influential 2014 "Scale-Up Report," which was commissioned by the UK government to analyze the challenges and opportunities for high-growth businesses. This report highlighted a "scale-up gap" and estimated that closing it could generate an additional £225 billion for the UK's Gross Value Added and create 150,000 net jobs by 2034. Coutu, a Canadian-born entrepreneur with an MBA from Harvard, has a background in founding technology and financial services companies, including Interactive Investor, and serves as an angel investor and board member for numerous firms.

The organization operates on a not-for-profit basis, collaborating with policymakers, corporate partners, financial institutions, and educational establishments to implement the recommendations from the 2014 report. Its core activities involve conducting research, sharing best practices, and creating resources to help businesses overcome common barriers to growth, such as access to talent, markets, finance, leadership development, and infrastructure. The Institute tracks the number and performance of UK scale-ups, which are defined as companies growing by over 20% annually. Its annual reviews provide data on the scale-up ecosystem; the 2024 review identified 34,180 such businesses, which collectively represent half of all SME turnover in the UK. The Institute is led by CEO Irene Graham, who works to keep scale-up issues on the national agenda.