Despite the success of UK tech over the last decade – and Tech Nation’s role in supporting over 1,000 companies, 97% of which successfully scaled from Seed to Series F – there remain challenges to be tackled. Over the last decade (2012-2022), almost 20% of UK tech startups and scaleups failed in the course of their growth journey, and around 50% remain stuck in early growth stages. Only 23% of UK tech startups and scaleups have exited or reached late-stage scaling growth (post Series C). If just 10% more of the total pool of tech startups and scaleups reached this stage, this could mean an additional £30bn turnover contributed to the UK economy.

Insight from Tech Nation shows the leading factors that prevent these companies scaling are: expanding into the US comes top (54%), followed by establishing the right partnerships (51%) and sales strategies (51%). The findings provide evidence for the need to support tech firms to grow faster, more efficiently, and deliver greater returns back to founders, employees, and the population more broadly.

Tech Nation launches new Growth Platform

To better address this problem, Tech Nation has launched a new Growth Platform: an online platform to support over 6,000 scale-ups during the entire scaling journey - from seed stage to IPO, to take pressure off leaders growing their business, and to give scaleups the competitive edge as they scale. It provides the tools, data, resources and expert connections to help scaleups overcome more than 900 scaling challenges identified by Tech Nation. 

• In addition to Tech Nation’s existing offering (which does not change), through the platform, UK tech scaleups will now also able to access:
• Data to benchmark progress and show scaleups how they stack up against their peers, to help with decision making, to analyse new opportunities, and to predict future challenges and what’s coming next.
• Access to Tech Nation’s extensive network to find trusted groups of peers that fuel forum discussions, exchange valuable opinions, and accelerate the route to a solution; as well as connect scaleups with Tech Nation’s network of advisers, investors and partners. 
• Personalised and data-driven content including help and advice from real leaders who have scaled before, solving over 900 scaling challenges.
• Tech Nation’s Growth and Sector programmes will be supported through the platform providing content, reading lists, connections and expert speaker masterclasses. Tech Nation's alumni network, which includes over 30% of the UK's tech ‘unicorns’, will also come together on the platform to share experiences and help other scaleups. Joining the network also makes it faster to apply and register for Tech Nation programmes and events. Tech Nation will also be launching their first ever programme for UK tech companies looking to expand to the US (the number one challenge that prevents companies from scaling at speed) on the Growth Platform in July 2022.
• A wide variety of resources to help save time and avoid duplication of common tasks, including content, events, templates and data. Tech Nation will organise specific sessions, support, panels and Q&A sessions based on their chosen challenges, to help tech founders and employees with their individual needs. Having run some of the most successful accelerator programmes in the UK, Tech Nation has distilled a huge amount of knowledge and learnings to share on the platform. 
• These solutions are brought through Tech Nation’s extensive experience, and from content created by hundreds of inspiring leaders who have overcome the same challenges. Tech Nation combines challenge data, collected from the user, with data from past cohorts and companies at the same stage of growth to predict what individuals are likely to need to succeed.

For scaleups, the platform will mean that anyone with an idea and ambition to grow will be able to access the tools and networks they need to succeed. For the UK, it will mean that more companies are able to succeed and contribute positively to economic growth through attracting investment and creating new jobs.

A new chapter for an evolving Tech Nation 

This marks a milestone in the evolution of Tech Nation, building upon the success of the last eight-years by giving tech startups and scaleups unparalleled access to expertise, coaching and peer-to-peer networks who are matched to help each other scale and succeed. 

The Growth Platform will enable Tech Nation to reach more scaleups than ever before as Tech Nation’s support will extend further beyond regions, time zones, territories and technologies. It helps Tech Nation to support scaleups in every part of the UK, regardless of the location, so they can grow their company into a national success story.

It will enable Tech Nation to store and share much of the learning from each year’s activity, to build the most powerful scaling playbook, and provide data and benchmarking to help predict future challenges and speed the scaling journey.

All UK tech scaleups can now apply to join the Growth Platform

Any eligible UK company can become a basic-level member of the Growth Platform, giving them online access to data, events, resources and networks to accelerate their scaling journey. Eligible UK companies include Growth and Sector programme cohort companies, tech businesses scaling at speed (with 20%+ year-on-year growth), and Highly Commended Applicants (HCAs) who apply for and narrowly miss a place on the growth and sector programmes. Currently, 675 users from Tech Nation’s network have joined and are using the platform already, with the number of users currently growing by 150+ a week on average.