Scale | Impact programme: accelerating the growth of impact ventures

Setting the scene

Our Social Entrepreneurs Club and Scale Team have come together to co-run a series of programmes to help scale-ups grow and thrive. Through the Scale | Impact programme, we’ve been working with Impact Hub Kings Cross to connect scale-ups working to increase education and employment outcomes by providing them with access to our network of experts, professional support and connections to the Impact Hub’s community.

This is an important part of our wider scale-up programmes, which you can find out more about here.

“Over the last ten years, Impact Hub Kings Cross has come to believe that scaling proven entrepreneurial solutions in one of the best ways to achieve social impact at scale. We’re delighted to be teaming up with PwC to deliver the Scale | Impact programme, and excited to see the quality and potential of the participating enterprises and the talented teams behind them.”

Richard Evans, Chairman of Impact Hub Kings Cross

How we helped

As part of the 12 week programme, and working together with Impact Hub Kings Cross, we worked with nine of the best purpose-driven scale-ups in the UK to increase their commercial opportunities through mentoring and business support.

We hosted two large events1, bringing together over a hundred senior stakeholders, leaders and industry experts from the Education and Employment sector to hear from our scale-ups and consider how they might be able to work together. As a result, we helped facilitate more than 300 introductions among these attendees and our wider network.

The scale-ups also took part in masterclasses to assist them in areas such as their growth plans, recruitment, sales strategy. It also gave them the opportunity to receive pitch coaching from our experienced coaches.

1 Both events were arranged during FY18, and took place on 5 June and 5 July 2018 respectively

Making a difference

The scale-ups were wide-ranging and included Equal Education, a tutoring service for children in care, the EBP, an award-winning social enterprise supporting young people across the country to develop the skills they need to be the best they can be, and Economic Change, a social enterprise who train and place mothers into permanent and contract Salesforce job opportunities.

Previous participants in our scale-up programmes have collectively raised £295 million in equity on joining and have since been valued at $1billion. As well as investment, the cohorts received 1,700 introductions to over 800 relevant executive stakeholders, driving commercial opportunities for both parties.

“We recognise the crucial role start-ups can play in helping the employment and education sectors tackle the skills gap. Schools, universities, government and businesses working together will be key to improving the availability of skills, and scale-ups can help make this happen.”

David AdairHead of Community Engagement, PwC UK

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