Engine Shed launches Scale Up Generator

Engine Shed's Briony Phillips, whose role as Scale up Enabler is partially funded by Business West, has created a new resource to help business founders and aspiring scale-up businesses access the support they need to grow.

The Scale Up Generator website comprises The Scale Up Yearbook, maps of scale up support, and scale up companies and insights into the challenges of scaling up in the West of England. 

Speaking of the Scale Up Generator, Briony Phillips said:

“The West of England is a national leader and innovator in this kind of work. The Scale up Generator website demonstrates how rich both the scale up support community, and the scale up communities are in the wider Bristol and Bath region. Now, our collective challenge is to maximise the positive impact for all our citizens.”

Briony’s work and this website aim to:

• Invigorate the investment ecosystem in the region and improve access to finance
• Inspire founders and aspiring scale-ups
• Invigorate and build the profile of the region as a home for successful scale up companies

In order to achieve these goals, Engine Shed runs an in-house Investor-in-Residence service, the Quarterly Investment Briefing and the UKBAA Angel Hub. A series of Scale up Briefing events and a growing bank of case studies will offer inspiration for start-ups and scale-ups, and peer-to-peer networks, shared resources, and data and maps to expose the great work that happens locally will be available to support businesses. Engine Shed also aims to gather and share intelligence to minimise duplication and maximise collaboration in the region to make support more accessible.

The majority of Briony’s research will be accessible on the Scale Up Generator website including insights into finding office space, securing investment, useful networking information, and the scale up support map. In addition, TechSPARK has been commissioned to create case studies on existing scale up success stories, including Ultrahaptics, Duel, and Dialect.

The Scale Up Yearbook is the culmination of Briony Phillip’s role as West of England Scale Up Enabler, after dedicating the last 12-months to making the West of England an even better place for businesses to grow. The Yearbook highlights the need for a uniting brand that will put Bristol and Bath on the map as a world-leader in sustainable economic growth. The 16-page report highlights the success of fast growth companies in the Bristol city-region since receiving scale up support over the past 12-months, and recognises the work that still needs to be done to invigorate the local investment ecosystem. This initial Scale up Enabler experiment was supported by Business West, the West of England Growth Hub and the University of Bristol.

Briony has recently been appointed Scale up Enabler and Associate Director of Engine Shed and will continue her work championing and enabling scaling companies in the region with a focus on access to investment and leadership capacity, reflecting Engine Shed’s ongoing commitment to local economic growth.

Cassie Yates, Enterprise Project Manager at Business West, said:

“Business West is proud to have partially funded the Scale Up Enabler role to deliver The Scale-up Yearbook and Scale-up Generator Mapping tool. Scale-up companies are a vital part of our economy and only by supporting these companies can unleash the full potential of the UKs productivity. The Enterprise Team at Business West is now excited to take the findings and recommendations from the report forward and to continue to locate and support the "invisible" scale-ups in the ways most relevant to them”

You can find the Scale Up Yearbook and company case studies on The Scale Up Generator website, which will be updated regularly with advice and insights for fast growth UK companies.