The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
More than 1,000 jobs sparked by accelerator
IMPACT: Report shows Entrepreneurial Spark Scotland has supported 625 firms
Business growth accelerator Entrepreneurial Spark helped create more than 1,000 jobs in Scotland last year.
A new 2016 impact report shows the group – which operates from three Scottish locations including a hub within the offices of RBS at Gogarburn – has provided support to more than 600 fledgling and high-growth Scottish companies with a collective turnover of more than £64 million.
Entrepreneurs who have been through the programme have created a total of 1,047 new jobs and attracted £48m of new investment. The report shows that nationwide, Entrepreneurial Spark has enabled more than 1,700 businesses to scale up.
Collectively, those companies have turned over £176m and secured £151m in investment, a 235% rise on 2015.
Of participant companies in the Entrepreneurial Spark accelerator programme, around 85% are still trading which is more than double the national average.
“We’ve enabled our entrepreneurs to create real jobs, huge turnover and significant investment via our focus on developing their entrepreneurial mindsets and behaviours,” CEO Lucy-Rose Walker said.
“It’s really gratifying to see that those entrepreneurs have now created 3,152 jobs across the UK, all of them creating social change by contributing to their communities and local economies.”
In addition to RBS, KPMG, Dell Technologies and Harper Macleod all provide expertise to the programme.
Alison Rose, RBS CEO of commercial and private banking, said: “The Impact Report shows that the support our free accelerators are giving to entrepreneurs is working, enabling them to create jobs across the UK, secure millions of pounds of investment and support their local economies.”