The entrepreneurship simulator
Scale Up!
Launching a startup is easy. Successfully raising outside capital and scaling? Much, much harder. Designed for accelerators, incubators, startup teams, board members, early-stage investors, and anyone dealing with startups and scale-ups – Scale Up! helps you understand, experience, and overcome the growth challenges startups often face when trying to scale.
Scale Up! in 30 sec
You are the two co-founders of a startup. Your goal is to build and scale this tiny startup to a successful scale-up. The first team to successfully raise a 50M syndicate investor deal – and make it over the finish line win.
Along the way, you will meet ups (Boom), downs (Bust), investors, Super Angels, and World Famous Advisors. You will develop strategies, funding structures, business models, and pitches, deal with strategic dilemmas, build your investor pitch, master cap table math, deal with exit scenarios, and learn how to develop your long-term capital strategy. You will be competing with (up to) five other teams, all set on finishing ahead of you.
Work strategically, deal with investors as best as possible, structure great investment deals, handle startup challenges, and work hard and fast to raise your 50M syndicate.
Good luck!
“I’ve never seen a more unique and powerful way to help startups learn how to scale, raise financing and truly understand how to build better companies than the Scale Up! simulation.”
Rick Rasmussen
Industry Fellow, Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, UC Berkeley
canvases
Scale Up! Toolkit
Raising funds to scale a startup is hard. Doing it as a female founder is much, much harder. Female-founded and mixed-gender startup teams still receive less than 12 percent of total global VC funding.
We have taken everything we know about the unique challenges that women have to navigate in their fundraising journey and created Scale Up X! – the first gender-smart investment readiness simulation developed specifically to help female founders succeed.
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Content deepdive
What You Will Experience
You and your team will take on the role of a young startup team. You will be challenged to develop a strategy and make strategic decisions under time pressure, notably with regard to investors and investor syndicates.
You will be exposed to strategic dilemmas, hostile competitors, demanding investors, complex deals, liquidity crises, and all the factors a startup team has to deal with as it tries to get to a successful exit.
Many people get overwhelmed. They function poorly as a team. They get stressed. They make bad decisions. They are unable to collaborate on strategy. They are unable to handle tough competitors. They make bad deals. They are unable to handle cap tables.
This is by design.
COMPANIES
Cleantech, seafood, tourism, software, digital health? Select the industry and startup ecosystem most suitable to your participants.
CHALLENGES
Work on dozens of real-life cases, roadmaps, investor negotiations and much more. Experience real life investor challenges, in the simulation
INVESTORS
Investor Development might be the toughest challenge for startups and scale-ups. Structure 5-8 funding rounds, just like in real life…
ADVISORS
Need help to accelerate your startup’s climate impact? Lean on global climate VC expert Don Wood to accelerate your journey to success.
SUPER INVESTORS
Looking for just the right investor for your startup? Meet 100’s of real life investors, with real life terms and expectations, like Peach and Lightrock.
UPS & DOWNS
Suffer the downturns and surf the upturns of startup life. Get exposed to 100’s of scenarios and every shade of startup life. All built on real-life events.
the team
Key Roles on Your Team
Each team will have 2 to five participants, with three being the target number.
Founder CEO
The CEO is responsible for overall team performance and company development. Needs to handle complexity and be able to ‘see through the fog’.
Founder CSO
The CFO is in charge of all aspects of finance, liquidity, cap table, and investor relations. Will work closely with CEO, but needs to ‘stay on top of cash and financing’
Co-Founder / Board Member
If you are more than two people, you can bring in more co-founders (equity split?) or board members. That’s up to you.
“I was rather impressed – as I saw what the students were doing and how they were acting; they were truly immersed and learning. Our students were amazed and it was really valuable to them in terms of learning how to run a startup and scale up.”
Magdalena Meusburger
Director and Co-Founder of startupstube
format
Our Success Stories, Online and In-person
Scale Up! can be used in-person, as well as online. Here are some success stories showcasing our different formats.
online
How FH Vorarlberg Explored Experiential Learning 100% Digital
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in person
Accelerating the Development of the Swiss Innovation Ecosystem
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in person
Strategizing for Success: Scale Up! with Entrepreneurs’ Organization UAE
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work with us
Bring Scale Up! to Your Startups
Get in touch with us to learn more and explore how we can tailor our simulation to benefit your students or startups, whether you’re looking to enhance entrepreneurship skills, foster teamwork, or cultivate strategic thinking.
partner with us
Get Certified in Running Scale Up!
Do you work with startups & scale ups? Do you coach founders on fund-raising, scaling and growth? Are you a startup ecosystem leader or developer?
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