Grand Scale Kickstart recognised as a national model for accelerating innovation-led commercialisation, rebalancing regional growth and enabling UK ventures to scale.
The ScaleUp Institute has formally endorsed Grand Scale Kickstart as one of the UK’s leading scaleup programmes, recognising its outstanding contribution to accelerating the commercial success, investor readiness, and scaling capacity of innovation led ventures nationwide.
Since 2020, Grand Scale has supported more than 150 research and tech-based ventures and over 330 entrepreneurs and innovation leaders (41% female) through national and regional partnerships. Its most significant project has been with Innovate UK, which provided funding to Grand Scale to deliver the Kickstart programme as part of the ICURe Exploit pathway — a £2.736 million intervention supporting 75 spinouts from 27 universities.
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Created to close the “commercialisation gap” for deep-tech and research-led ventures, the programme helps exceptional scientists and innovators — many with over a decade of groundbreaking research — to gain the commercial skills and confidence needed to turn their discoveries into scalable businesses. It empowers leaders to build a repeatable, scalable sales engine that positions them to secure the growth capital needed to expand.
The programme’s demonstrated success in translating breakthrough innovation into commercially viable and investment-ready ventures has driven its adoption and commissioning across the UK. In addition to the funding agreement with Innovate UK, Grand Scale was appointed by Scottish Enterprise and Opportunity North East (ONE) in 2025 to deliver Kickstart to accelerate the development of high-growth ventures across Scotland. These engagements have further highlighted the programme’s adaptability and measurable impact in driving scale up success.
Delivered through a flexible online platform, Kickstart is industry-agnostic, designed to be relevant and accessible to innovators from diverse backgrounds and across strategically important UK sectors, including life sciences, climate and clean-energy tech, advanced manufacturing, fintech, and digital technologies. It equips founders with the capabilities to build sustainable, scale-ready businesses while embedding principles of equality, diversity, and inclusion throughout its design.
Across its six national Innovative UK ICURe cohorts (2022–2025), Kickstart equipped 182 academic founders and innovation leaders with the commercial skills and strategies to scale their ventures — generating £7.8 million in early revenues and £82.4 million in follow-on funding and investment within 12 months of starting the programme. This represents a 33:1 return on programme investment, with 68% of investment secured outside the South of England — directly addressing the regional imbalance in access to growth capital and strengthening innovation ecosystems nationally.
Key impact outcomes within 12 months of the programme include:
• £82.4 million in follow-on funding and investment secured.
• 68% of investment secured outside the South, demonstrating tangible regional rebalancing.
• £7.8 million in early commercial revenue.
• 79% of ventures launched or were on track to launch within a year.
• 75% secured new sales or paid contracts.
• 62% entered international markets
• Founders reported up to 163% uplift in commercial capability and confidence.
These results reflect the depth of Grand Scale’s commercial and leadership expertise. Drawing on more than 50 years of combined experience in taking technology ventures from launch through to growth, scaling and exit, co-founders Roisin Garland and Leanne Jennings have ensured Kickstart is built on real-world scaling experience, providing the foundation for its proven results.
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With its structured, evidence-based design, validated through national delivery and independent evaluation, Grand Scale Kickstart stands as an exemplar model for building scaling readiness and leadership confidence within innovation-driven businesses, delivering exceptional value and measurable returns on public investment.
The ScaleUp Institute’s endorsement of Grand Scale Kickstart comes at a pivotal time as both the UK and EU prioritise strengthening the scale-up pipeline. Recent reports highlight a ‘second funding gap’ where high-potential ventures struggle to secure the capital needed to scale. Grand Scale Kickstart directly addresses this challenge by equipping founders to build structured commercialisation and revenue strategies that demonstrate market traction, scalability, and investor readiness - de-risking ventures and widening access to capital.
Roisin Garland, Co-Founder, Grand Scale: “Over the past five years, my co-founder Leanne Jennings and I have distilled our experience of taking ventures from early stage to exit into an evidence-based model for commercialisation and growth. Support from national and regional innovation agencies has enabled us to deliver that model across the UK and demonstrate its impact on the country’s innovation economy. With the ScaleUp Institute’s endorsement, we’re now taking that success to the next level — building an AI-powered platform to reach thousands more innovation-led ventures, democratising entrepreneurship and ensuring every founder can turn breakthrough research and technology into scalable, investable business success.”
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