Why are we doing this?

We believe that ambitious, innovative startups are a key source of economic growth for the UK. However, to date it has been difficult to identify or understand these businesses, with most research focusing on the population of all new businesses or on certain subsectors of innovative startups such as University spinouts or venture capital funded businesses.

Our aim is to better identify startups in the UK that support innovation and research the factors that impact the likelihood of their success. This research is aimed at improving our understanding of startups in a way that will benefit intermediaries, funders, support programmes, policymakers and startups themselves.

What are we doing?

We are building a number of research projects looking at factors impacting startups such as access to finance, networks, mentorship and talent. We are also keen to explore the potential for new sources of data and new data techniques to shed light on issues relating to startups.

Our research kicks off with a project interviewing startups engaging in a breadth of innovative activity across the UK to assist us in developing further projects.

The background

This workstream aims to build on previous research looking at venture capital, business angels and crowdfunding and also Nesta’s work on growth businesses. This work is also complimentary to Nesta’s work on startup accelerators.