A new white paper from VenturePath and Sheffield Haworth sets out one of the most significant - and underappreciated — risks facing UK scaleups in 2026: the absence of a strategic CFO at the moment it matters most. The headline finding is stark. 67% of future scaleups have no CFO in place. In a venture market that has fundamentally reset around capital efficiency and operating discipline, that gap is no longer a back-office oversight. It is a visible signal to investors — and

In the UK, we have become experts at the ‘start’. With four of the world’s top ten universities and the third-largest venture capital market globally, our ability to mint new companies is undisputed. However, the recently published UK ScaleUp Investment Report - which combines venture data from Sifted with extensive founder and VC surveys - highlights a sobering reality: we are still struggling with the ‘scale’. The data shows that the bottleneck at the Series A stage is tig

Following the launch of The UK ScaleUp Investment Report, it is clear that while £17 billion was invested in innovative UK companies in 2025, accessing capital is still one of the biggest barriers faced by scaleups. For founders preparing to navigate the investment landscape in 2026, the report highlights several specific realities. Below we recap the key implications for founders raising this year. 1. The "ScaleUp Gap" is a precision task While around 6,000 companies raised

Last week, we launched The UK ScaleUp Investment Report at the inaugural UK ScaleUp Investment Summit. This report comes at a time when the UK has an unprecedented opportunity to build world-leading businesses, yet faces significant "disconnects" in the funding landscape. As catalysts of the UK ScaleUp Investment Mission, we have participated in over 75 Government meetings to help determine opportunities to improve the investment landscape. This report is the culmination of