Globally, more than 7.000 participants have built their scale up skills with Scale Up! Now, we are thrilled to launch Scale Up Europe. Our goal: partner with Europe’s ecosystem builders to accelerate European entrepreneurship.
A simple question
It starts simple question. “How can we get more European companies to truly scale up?”
The answer is more complex. Capital, mindset, infrastructure, regulations, ecosystem, market sizes, capital markets, exit opportunities; are just some of the building blocks. We believe it starts with something simpler. It starts with a profound understanding of what the founder’s journey actually looks like. It starts with a deep appreciation of what the capital strategy for that journey looks like – and most importantly, the mindset, ambition and drive to make that happen.
We are thrilled to introduce Scale Up Europe! to address these challenges head on, to enable European founders, investors and management teams to successfully scale up! Built on 20 years of experience with early-stage companies across Europe, and working with 1000’s of founders globally, we are now launching Scale Up Europe! with one simple mission: supporting more European founders to scale up.
To date, Scale Up! has been delivered in over 30 countries globally, with leading business schools, fund-of-funds, ecosystem developers, angel networks and accelerators. Now, it’s Europe’s turn.
Europe has a scaling challenge
Europe has world class research. Our universities, research talent and research depth is truly world-class. Our early-stage entrepreneurship ecosystem has grown significantly. By many accounts, early-stage VC capital in Europe has 10X’d. Yet, we are behind.
We are significantly underperforming when it comes to scaling up, building large tech companies, developing our sovereign tech infrastructure, rapidly building up new tech areas (AI, Defense) supplying late-stage venture financing and having the financial depth to back companies all the way through a successful outcome.
Many have written about the challenges: from Draghi to McAfee to Wichmann.
In our experience, there is a different, simpler, initial challenge to overcome.
Having run 100’s of Investment Readiness Programs, often with mixed groups of US, European, Middle East, Canadian founders in the room. In 9 out of 10 cases, there is a significant step change difference in how US founders often approach the entire process. From attitude, understanding of the founder’s journey, early market traction, size of exit potential, negotiating on term sheets and ability to quicker close rounds. The Danish or British founders might be technically stronger; but the US founder is often able to close bigger, better rounds faster.
Introducing, Scale Up Europe!
It is against this backdrop we are truly excited to launch Scale Up Europe! we firmly believe Europe can build one – and many – €1 Trillion companies (we recently wrote about it here).
But to get there, we believe the European ecosystem needs eight key items:
1. Ambitions to build bigger companies (build to scale)
2. Deeper understanding of the full founder’s journey, from idea to liquidity
3. Stronger commercial revenue focus (build stronger GTM, BD, sales capacity)
4. Stronger capital strategies, for fundraising from pre-seed to Series H and beyond
5. Ability to create value and generate liquidity for different types of investors along the journey
6. Vastly increased investor readiness, from seed to series C
7. Management, board members and investors that understand and accelerate this journey
8. Companies that are built to scale up, not remain small and sell early
We bring these items together in Scale Up Europe!
Scale Up Europe! is a simulation, a way to experience the full founder’s journey of scaling a company from idea to successful outcome. Scale Up Europe! is delivered through Masterclasses (1-3 days), Programs (30-180 days) and Ecosystem Development Projects (1-4 years).
Each client we work with can choose the format that best fit, from short Masterclasses to longer programs or long-term ecosystem development projects.
How Scale Up Europe! equips founders & teams to scale – and ecosystems to grow
In Scale Up! teams form to build and scale a case company over 8-10 years. Each team has a CEO, CRO, CFO, CPO and IRM. From early idea, founder’s mindset, foundational equity, customer discovery, early financing and product development, teams are working through early-foundational challenges.
Over 2-3 days, teams race to expand into new market, build out their AI stack and secure much needed financing.
Each team can expect to see 50-80 unique term sheets, all built on real-life investment term sheets, as they raise pre-seed, seed, seed+, A, B, C and beyond, while also managing the multitude of investment instruments they are likely to face.
Revenue acceleration, margin expansion, M&A, early-investor liquidity, partial secondaries and in-market setbacks are challenges facing teams as they scale. Along the journey, teams will structure growth strategies, capital strategies and work to execute against their competition.
Successful teams are likely to hit Colt status ($25 revenue), Thoroughbred status ($100M revenue) or an outlier Elephant status ($10BN ARR), while keeping customer churn to an industry low.
All teams, while scaling, need to balance cap table considerations, dilution, valuations and – in most cases – experience the challenges of scaling the cap table from a handful of founders to 40+ investors, many with different preference share classes, anti-dilution mechanisms, liquidation preferences and return expectations. Ultimately, founders need to create value for themselves, for customers, for early- and late-stage investors and structure a winning liquidity transaction that can support the European ecosystem’s future success. This is not an easy task, and the reason why most founders state “this is really, really hard – but incredibly valuable”.
Structured as a 2-3 days Masterclass, a longer investor readiness program or multi-year ecosystem development, Scale Up Europe! equips founders with both technical skills and confidence to ramp up their scaling journey.
What founders, management, investors and ecosystem developers walk away with
Upon completion of Scale Up! participants and clients can expect three categories of outcomes.
Masterclass: 2-3 intense days A masterclass is an intense, fast-paced, competitive experience, designed to kick start a profound insight on what it actually takes to scale up. The primary outcome is a significantly improved investor readiness – in just a few days.
Many founders make leaps of progress on the Entrepreneurial Finance Readiness Level in mere days (we wrote about the EFRL here).
Program: Balanced out over 30-180 days Programs work with founders over time. Pre-work, post-work, developing pitch decks, data rooms, build investor lists, develop all fundraising materials, use AI tools to enhance the fundraising process, milestones, outreach, term sheet negotiation, due diligence and closing; a program frequently leads to successfully closed funding rounds.
Ecosystem development project: strategic initiative spread over multiple years Most often anchored by the national or regional innovation agency, a bank or government agency, a multi-year ecosystem project aims to upskill and boost the entire ecosystem. Done right, the outcome will carry the ecosystem forward for years.
Built on 20 years hard-earned experience
40 boards, 150 investments, 400+ equity rounds, 1000’s of founders globally. Scale Up Europe! is built on real experience, building real companies.
Over the past 20 years, we have been neck-deep in the global startup landscape. Across Europe, we have made 150 startup investments, seeing cap tables evolve through the founder’s journey. We have taken companies from idea to IPO. We have done secondaries transactions at Series A. We have seen cap tables getting nuked and all equity value written to zero, from weak leadership.
Over the years, we’ve sat on more than 40 startup boards, spending 100’s of hours in strategy-, fundraising and motivating founder CEO that have run into a brick wall. Working closely with founders, we have been on the inside of more than 400 priced equity rounds, negotiating with Swiss corporates, UK VC funds and Nordic late-stage VCs on all aspects of term sheets. We have seen founders struggle to fundraise and developed step-by-step playbooks for how to successfully close tight funding rounds.
We have celebrated €52M seed rounds and shut down underperforming companies that could not find product-market fit. Through Scale Up! programs and Masterclasses, we have worked with 5.000+ founders, investors, angels, educators, bankers, VCs, ecosystem developers and national change makers globally.
It is these 20 years of insights and experience we bring into Scale Up Europe! It is our own pain, losses, challenges, gains, wins and insights we pack into the simulation and programs.
Who is it for?
Scale Up Europe! is developed for anyone in the European startup- and venture ecosystem. We identify 21 key benefiters.
Startup founders – Early-stage, often introduction to investor readiness, fundraising 101 and basic investment instruments. (Usually participate via an accelerator, Incubator or TTO program) (Case study: Falak Startups, Egypt)
Scale up founders – Late seed to series B, have raised significant funding. Now need to win at the later stages. Program focus on Series A-C, partial liquidity, pre-IPO and exit transactions. (Case study: Dubai Future District Fund, Dubai)
Aspiring startup founders – first-time founders, introduction to entrepreneurship, often run via Science parks, Technology Transfer Offices, PhD scientist-to-founder-programs, Startup Studios and student clubs. (Case study: Ocean Startup Project, Canada)
Education, business schools, universities – teaching programs, from Bachelor, Master, MBA, Executive, Corporate. May also include TTT for faculty. Most commonly for teaching entrepreneurial finance and the entrepreneurship journey. (Case study: ESCP Berlin)
Accelerator programs – Use as core part of investor readiness modules; from 3- to 30-days. Often blended programs, online- and in-person with significant work to get investor ready. (Case study: Katapult Ocean, global)
Accelerator staff – for upskilling and developing the internal accelerator teams, working to support founders. From 2-3 day duration. For full-scale TTT programs, can go up to 180-days. (Case study: UN ITC YECO)
Incubators, co-working spaces, Technology Transfer Offices – for early-stage founders, first introductions to fundraising, from 2-day to 180 day programs. (Case study: Sheraa, UAE)
Entrepreneurship organizations – for running high-value programs for members and participants. Often run as 1- or 2-day format. (Case study: EO, Dubai)
Startup ecosystem organizations – running ecosystem development programs. Programs range from 1-day to 180-days. Might include Slush, Web Summit, TechBBQ, VivaTech, (Case study: Digital Switzerland, Switzerland)
Startup mentors, board members – tend to love the Scale Up! experience. “”extremely useful for my work”, is a common quote. Often join ecosystem- or angel programs. (Case study: Capital Mentor Program, Innovation Norway, Norway)
Business angels – for strengthening the individual’s role as an business angel. Often participating in Angel network programs. (Case study: Tiye Angels, Egypt)
Angel networks – for training new and experienced angels, strengthening the angel collaboration, building a more professional angel network. (Case study: Connect Vest, Norway)
Investment firms; venture capital firms, family offices – For internal teams, investment staff & portfolio founders, often focus on the top 30% founders that can really scale. From 2-day to 180-day program. (Case study: 2X Global, South Africa)
Fund-of-funds – for serving both portfolio founders as well as portfolio GPs. Fund-of-funds tend to ask both “how do we support both our GPs and our startup founders?”. Programs range from 1-day to 180-day. (Case study: DFDF, Dubai)
Government, ministries – internal programs to better understand how to support founders and working with national innovation agencies, national change makers to roll out programs nationwide. (Case study: Falak Innovation, Bahrain)
Innovation agencies – for startup, scale up & ecosystem development, focus on capital strategy, investor readiness, fundraising and scaling up. Can also focus internally on capacity development. (Case study: InnovateBC, Canada)
Economic development agencies – with a global focus, economic development, these organizations focus on creating new entrepreneurs and accelerate entrepreneurship at scale, often use Scale Up! as a core part of a much larger program, from 3-days to years. (Case study: Swiss EP, Switzerland, Vietnam)
Innovation Clusters – for cluster development, ecosystem building, supporting startup founders on investor readiness and growth strategy. (Case study: NCE Seafood Innovation cluster)
Banks, pension funds – for upskilling internal banking teams on entrepreneurial finance, startup development and the journey from idea to exit. Answers “How can we better support scale up founders?”. Often run as 2-day Masterclasses. (Case study: DNB, Norway)
Corporate innovators – for internal teams. Focus on how we can better work with startups, how to drive an innovation culture. Internal competition and team building. From 1-day to 90-day programs. Often done during team offsites. (Case study: Accenture/Founder’s Intelligence, UK)
Corporate venture capital. For internal CVC teams and portfolio companies. From 1-day to 90-day programs. (Case study: Aker Solutions, Norway)
How does it work?
Scale Up Europe! can be delivered in-person, 100% online or blended. We have extensive experience structuring Masterclasses, Programs and Ecosystem Projects for global teams.
Delivered by global experts
Scale Up Europe! is delivered by a team of global experts, with extensive, personal experience building companies, raising financing, expanding into new markets and teaching entrepreneurship at scale. We assemble the right team for each project, bringing in both global and local expertise to each cohort.
How you can bring Scale Up Europe! to your part of the ecosystem
If you are an ecosystem builder in Europe, talk to us. If you are a change maker in a national innovation agency, or want to enhance your accelerator program, let’s connect.
If you are faculty and want to bring Scale Up Europe! into your classroom, get in touch. If you are passionate about scaling the European startup ecosystem, join us.
Your next steps
0. Sign up for the June 9th Webinar
1. Get in touch with us
2. Explore fit, “what are the key challenges Scale Up Europe! can solve for you?”
3. Align on outcomes, “what does success and success metrics look like for you?”
4. Find the right format for you, “Masterclass, Program, Development, what serves you best?”
5. Lock in dates to bring Scale Up Europe! to you
6. Run the Masterclass, Program or Ecosystem Project
7. Support founders, investors post-program
Why 7.000+ founders, angels and investors love Scale Up!
In Scale Up! we don’t teach entrepreneurial finance. We give founders mastery. We train people to read term sheets and negotiate in real-time on the terms that truly matter.
“Chris, you have no idea how much the Scale Up! program helped me when we closed our recent round. For the first time, we actually understood what some of the investors were talking about and we could negotiate with them head on. Thank you”, said a female founder in Cairo, Egypt after closing her seed round led by international investors.
Cap table mastery. Sharp term sheet analysis. Founder-investor negotiation confidence. All outcomes from the Scale Up! Programs. All available to you and your ecosystem today.
Join the Webinar
June 9th, 12:30 CET. Get your seat today
Accelerator manager, innovation agency, ecosystem developer? Want to bring Scale Up Europe! programs into your ecosystem? Let’s talk!
Scale Up! fast facts:
- 7.000+ people completed to date
- Equips founders for the full journey from idea to exit
- Formats: Masterclass, Program, Ecosystem development
- Used widely across accelerators, incubators, angel networks, ecosystem development, innovation agencies, entrepreneurship organizations globally
- Now launching Scale Up Europe!
- Read more about the Scale Up Europe! Masterclass here
Scale Up! What people say:
- “Should be mandatory for all founders and investors”
- “All founders should take this”
- “A mini-MBA in fundraising”
- “Incredibly valuable”
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