Flagship investor showcase to accelerate UK scaleup growth
The Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs, the City of London’s 112th Livery Company, hosts Scale-Up Capital at the London Stock Exchange, a curated investor showcase designed to connect 14 of Britain’s most compelling growth-stage businesses with over 120 active investors in a single afternoon. Companies presenting are seeking between £5 million and £30 million plus in their next funding round.
The event continues the Scale-Up Capital programme launched at Mansion House in 2025 under the Mayoralty of Alderman Alastair King, now the Master Entrepreneur. Two landmark events last year brought more than 40 high-growth entities into the room with over 400 investors, resulting in more than £120 million in capital raised. Alastair was also the driving force and Co-Chair of Scotland’s Global Investment Summit, which showcased Scottish businesses to worldwide investors.
The 2026 programme expands to three events across London and Edinburgh, reinforcing the City’s commitment to keeping Britain’s fastest-growing companies scaling domestically.
“We are sitting on a goldmine of innovation, but we’re watching our gems get polished elsewhere. We need those firms which start here to stay here, to scale here, and to prosper here,” said Alderman Alastair King, Master Entrepreneur.
Hosted at LSEG’s Paternoster Square headquarters, the afternoon features multiple 10 minute pitching slots across two dedicated stages, a 120-seat theatre and an 80-seat forum, with a third space available for additional capacity. Structured networking sessions run before and after formal presentations, with media present throughout. The afternoon culminates at 4.30pm when presenting founders are invited onto the Exchange’s balcony to witness the close of trading, a moment designed to reinforce the City’s ambition to keep Britain’s fastest-growing companies scaling and listing in London. A networking session follows.
Every business in the cohort has been screened for commercial traction, typically demonstrating £1 million or more in revenue or a substantial reference client, realistic capital targets, and sector diversity. Investor delegates, including pension funds, venture capital trusts, family offices, and angel investors, attend at no cost to ensure only genuinely active capital is in the room.
Speaking at the Company’s Spring Lunch event in March, CEO of London Stock Exchange Group, Dame Julia Hoggett praised the Scale-Up Capital initiative, with its ambition to connect capital to creativity and reimagine London’s funding future. The partnership aligns with LSEG’s innovative approach and offers the perfect platform to publicise LSEG’s new PISCES programme, which allows companies to become public companies for limited periods only, giving them all the benefits of being a private company with periods when there is an orderly market for their shares, allowing for meaningful price-discovery and liquidity.
So many reports highlight that the UK is good at giving birth to startups – companies in their early stages. This is helped by generous tax breaks (EIS/SEIS) to incentivise investors to back early-stage companies. The UK is poor at backing those startups when they seek development or scale-up capital, once they have started to thrive. This means that these companies often have to seek this capital from outside the UK – often from the USA.
This event seeks to provide a platform where potential investors and investee companies can get to know one another in an effective and efficient environment. This work carries on Alastair King’s efforts as Lord Mayor (2024/25), particularly in the form of the Mansion House Accord. The Mansion House Accord is a voluntary agreement among 17 major UK workplace pension providers to invest at least 10% of their default Defined Contribution (DC) assets into private markets by 2030, with 5% specifically in UK companies. It aims to boost UK growth by unlocking an estimated £25–£50 billion in capital for infrastructure and high-growth businesses while increasing returns for pensioners. The challenge is to ensure that as large a slice of these Mansion House Accord monies are deployed into backing UK-based scaleup companies.
During his Mayoralty, Alastair devised a programme with The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT) to showcase UK-based scaleup companies at Mansion House. These have been highly successful. Now each of the WCIT and the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs are hosting programmes to raise scaleup funds for superb UK-based businesses, including a joint event to promote investment into defence and dual-use scaleups.
Scale-Up Capital 2026 comprises three events: the flagship all-sector showcase at the London Stock Exchange on 5th June; a defence and dual-use sector event at Mansion House on 9th September in partnership with the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists; and a Scottish and regional showcase in Edinburgh on 9th November.
Founders seeking to pitch may apply at entrepreneurscompany.org/scaling-enterprise-funding-ambition.
Investor registration is open to approved delegates at no charge. General enquiries: clerk@entrepreneurscompany.org or 020 3126 4924.
