A policy of showcasing the best of London’s high-growth businesses has been transformed into a new strategy that will help firms in the city and international companies expand their businesses and support the London’s economic growth.
Launched in May by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Grow London is a series of new business support services designed to help companies in high-growth sectors create the jobs of tomorrow. Delivered by the Mayor’s business growth agency, London & Partners, the Grow London service will include programmes for ambitious London start-ups, an export programme for scale-ups looking to grow overseas, and a ground-breaking Innovation Fellowship programme. Additional support will also be targeted at helping international businesses expand into London by leveraging London & Partners’ overseas offices in the US, Europe, India and China.
Managing Director of Grow London at London & Partners, Janet Coyle CBE, sees the launch of the new initiative as the culmination of what has been developed over the past few years to support the high-growth sector via events and trade missions that made a significant impression on potential overseas markets and investors.
“London is one of the world’s best places to scale a business as you have access to the best talent, funding, customers and networks all in one place,” said Janet. “Our new programmes will leverage London’s unique offer by bringing together the best corporates, investors and entrepreneurs to support the next generation of London companies.
“Investment into start-ups is always important but around 10 years ago we recognised that if we want to be home to really successful businesses, create our own Silicon Valley-type scenario, then we needed to focus on high-growth companies. The important thing is that these companies are ready to go to market. They may not have been going very long but they are ready to deliver what the big players want and need. Scaling up is always difficult, so we support them in that, taking them out and introducing them to the kind of market they are targeting.
“We switched the focus of trade missions and began actively selecting and inviting those companies we’d identified as growing quickly, those needing support but ready to start delivering. The results were fantastic. Arranging one such trade mission to the USA, we found that the American companies we met were so impressed that they wanted to organise a return visit so that they could come to London and find out what else our business community had to offer.”
The boost high-growth firms needed was provided through a number of avenues and forms the basis for the Grow London offering. It is recognised that the main needs of most businesses are: access to customers, access to funding and access to the kind of talent they need to keep building on what they have started.
Through Grow London, businesses will become part of an eco-system that involves events and peer-to-peer activity that generates valuable business relationships. They will also gain valuable insight into how to access investors, and meet decision makers both within London and from other global cities.
Having built programmes over the years in areas including fintech and cyber tech, enterprise, sustainability, creative industries and life sciences, London & Partners saw the need to link all those sectors together and has done so under the overarching name of Grow London.
Janet Coyle explained:
“When you are growing a business really quickly, there isn’t the amount of experience you might find in a situation where a founder has spent years building their business up steadily. There are more than 70 unicorns in London now, experiencing rapid growth from start-up to scale-up, they are securing investment and very much on the rise. But suddenly, with very little experience, they find they have to hire a leadership team or need some doors to be able to opened for them. The businesses we’re aiming at are typically growing at 20% year on year for three years, they’ll have at least 10 employees and £1m revenue or funding in place.
“We have created account managers who will sit down with a business and put together a proper plan and make sure they are aware of any initiatives that are coming up that might be useful to them. It’s curated connections, and it’s an opportunity to see the wider picture. They may need to be more inclusive in their recruitment strategy, for example. Too many people rely on asking around their network when they are looking for talent. Our programme encourages them to look further afield and also makes information available to individuals across the London boroughs so that they know what positions might be available – offering more diversity in the search for new talent.
“After 12 months on our programme the leaders become part of our alumni. They’re less directly involved but hopefully they are at a point where they are then able to feed in and pay it back to others who are coming through.”
Grow London comes at a time when research shows that London’s business ecosystem remains resilient despite a challenging economic environment, with the capital retaining its crown as the start-up capital of Britain. According to the annual Venture Forward report from GoDaddy, which analyses the concentration of microbusinesses and SMEs across the UK,18 of the top 20 constituencies for start-ups can be found in the capital.
Additional findings from the report shows that London’s SME community is the most diverse of anywhere in Britain. Half (49%) of Britain’s black SME owners live in London, while it is home to 40% of Asian entrepreneurs. London is also home to a quarter (24%) of Gen Z entrepreneurs, more than any other region the country.
Janet Coyle added:
“London is a place where anything is possible and its fantastic to see research highlighting the diversity of London’s business community. A healthy business ecosystem in London is also positive news for other regions across the UK as many of these companies will be looking to grow outside of the capital. We’re looking forward to supporting UK companies on their growth journey, as well as helping international businesses set up and expand in London.
“I feel we are building something really exciting and although our funding is for London companies, I have been having conversations with cities across the UK to widen our services out. Some great work is being done in other cities in terms of tech cultures and we should continue to support that. We’ve already done joint trade missions with Manchester and are looking to invite other cities to nominate scale-ups to open up the network across the UK.”
A Grow Summit, planned for later this year, will bring together 100 UK Scale-Ups in an effort to help address some of their challenges; bringing together investors and entrepreneurs who have experience in scaling businesses and have valuable knowledge to draw upon.
Sadiq Khan said:
“The launch of Grow London is a major boost for London’s entrepreneurs and growth businesses. With a challenging global economic environment and the cost-of-living crisis, it’s important that we continue to support our city’s businesses to reach their full potential, create additional jobs and build a more prosperous city for all Londoners. That’s why I set out an ambition to create the most advanced and integrated business support offer that London has seen.
“Our city is home to some of the world’s most exciting companies and this new range of programmes, delivered by London & Partners, to help start-ups and scale-ups grow, will help to ensure that our city continues to provide our innovators the support they need and to attract talent from around the world.”
London & Partners has supported the growth of over 5,000 London companies, creating over 75,000 additional jobs for the UK capital. The Grow London programme will receive £12m through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Find out more at grow.london