Matt Clifford

The UK has no shortage of startup support programmes. But how well do they work? In our new paper, Full Speed Ahead: Accelerating Britain’s network of startup support programmes, we ask whether the startup support ecosystem is delivering on its promise to founders, funders and the wider economy. We spoke to programme operators, founders, and policy experts to understand the challenges and opportunities, and we propose four areas of reform to help startup support programmes deliver lasting, measurable outcomes. As our Patron, Steve Rigby, writes in the foreword: “We are world-class at launching startups – but not yet at helping them scale. If we want the UK to remain globally competitive, we need to raise the bar on the programmes we fund, back, and promote.” Our report unpacks why issues persist. The common problems we found include: – Misaligned expectations: Many accelerators focus heavily on mentoring and workshops, whereas founders need investor and customer connections. – Duration mismatches: Most programmes last under six months, but founders in deep tech, health and regulated sectors need much longer runway to become investment-ready. – Short-term funding cycles: Stop-start grants disrupt mentorship, break community continuity and undermine the long-term trust essential for founder development. – Flawed impact measurement: Startup survival and funding secured are important, but this doesn’t capture long-term founder development or second-time success. A "failed" startup can produce a much stronger entrepreneur. Our recommendations include: – Establish standards and shared definitions for different programme types to bring clarity, comparability, and baseline quality to the sector. – Reform impact measurement to track long-term founder development, not just short-term startup outcomes or programme activities. – Move to longer-term, outcome-linked support, replacing stop-start grants with adaptable contracts that support iteration, trust, and planning. – Pilot demand-led funding vouchers to let public funding follow founder needs and reward high-performing programmes. We believe these reforms matter because founders need clarity, funders need accountability, and programmes need time and tools to improve. Done right, these changes could help ensure that public investment flows to the programmes that deliver the most value for founders and the UK economy.

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At Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), we help transform Oxford’s world-leading science into companies with the ambition and potential to solve the world’s biggest challenges. But true global impact and scale requires access to the world's most important markets. We see it as part of OSE's role to help open up those markets for our companies early on. How? We’re building strategic international partnerships that open doors and accelerate new market entry for Oxford’s breakthrough innovations. Our ambition is to create a global network of "launchpads" to help connect Oxford’s high-growth companies with the local innovation networks, customers, partners and capital that they need to expand commercially beyond the UK.   This year, we took two important steps in that journey: in the United States and Japan. 🌏 ➡️ Earlier this year, we joined forces with leading US healthcare provider Cedars-Sinai to bring leading-edge UK health tech innovation to the all-important US market. Together, we aim to co-build and co-invest in new ventures emerging from Oxford with the potential to transform patient care, accelerating their entry and growth in the US. Our first joint investment was in Neu Health – a University of Oxford spinout developing a smartphone-based neurology care platform for Parkinson’s and dementia patients. With Cedars-Sinai’s clinical expertise and US commercial insights, Neu Health is now piloting its technology in Los Angeles, accelerating its journey to impact patients on both sides of the Atlantic.   ➡️ This month, as part of our international acceleration strategy, we’re delighted to also be partnering with Scrum Ventures and Tokyu Land Corporation to join the Sakura Deeptech Shibuya Accelerator in Tokyo. This collaboration gives our deep tech start-ups direct access to Japan’s thriving innovation and investor networks, plus workspace, mentorship, and connections to leading Japanese partners. For our portfolio, it’s a fast-track route into one of the most advanced technology markets in the world. Our ambition with these partnerships is to create a two-way street of opportunity: alongside opening pathways for our companies to commercialise globally, we also want to draw international partners and investors from those markets back into Oxford’s rapidly expanding innovation ecosystem – sparking new international collaborations and driving growth. Learn more about our Japan partnership here: https://lnkd.in/eK_9vu3U   #OxfordInnovation #GlobalLaunchpads #DeepTech #HealthTech #GlobalPartnerships #ScalingScience #BillionDollarScience

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“The UK has the best talent in the world, but we sometimes lack ambition”   Grateful for Neil Buchanan @ Lodestar Space (‘bodyguards for satellites’) inspiring and educating our emerging founders spinning out from UK Atomic Energy Authority (thank you) > If you’re pre-idea and pre-cofounder you’ll benefit from doing the Entrepreneurs First programme (if you can get on). The speed of learning and environment truly accelerate founders > Unlocking early adopter demand: LinkedIn outreach, speak to people with common interests, build networks, keep the cadence of outreach, running a customer discovery process (‘mom test’ - Rob Fitzpatrick ) > Sizing the opportunity: top down look for $10BNs to $100BNs market problems and then look bottom up with an eye to the future. Bottom up is always the sobering one and should be your north star - never lie to your team, investors and worst of all: yourself.  > Engaging VCs often: reduce the risk as much as possible (team, market, tech) show how you’re hiring to fit a few key gaps can be fine > Founders need to be confident to be selective with the investors they partner with. Being mindful if you’re taking investment from a key player in an industry (is it for their ultimate M&A activity, is it going to impact your sales). Ideally you’re ambitious and don’t want an early exit but also investment from a defence prime if you’re dual use can unlock channels > Building for dual use or defence? Prioritise USA GTM in the short term. > Finding non-dilutive sources of cash: run a process to identify relevant organisations, keep an open mind / keep it wide to keep options open. Keeping burn low you can achieve a lot prior to dilutive capital > Don’t get distracted by the shiny numbers of a big raise - it's needed for strong talent acquisition & credibility boosting but the best talent will resonate with the high impact mission & tech dev to get there - the rest of your time for focus on where it needs to be: customers and sales > Geopolitics impacting decisions on which markets to target, hiring decisions, who to have on the cap table ▪️If you’re an investor / founder and you’d like to do a lunchtime Q&A to educate and inspire our emerging founders please DM

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One of the most exciting up and coming startups in Scotland - MedAscend - showcasing their interactive medical education AI avatar platform. Hana and Ahmed (School of Medicine, University of Dundee students) were talking about the incredible progress they have made in the last 12 months at the annual Elevator academic accelerator showcase. Scottish EDGE Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Dundee Techscaler Scottish Enterprise A great career overview from Chris Martin as well scaling software companies since the 90s creating hundreds of jobs and economic impact for Dundee in the process. Well done to this years accelerator participants and Andrew Cameron for guiding them over the last two months

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