SETsquared Southampton Business Growth Programme
The SETsquared Southampton Business Growth Programme is a fully funded scale-up support initiative designed for ambitious, high-growth businesses..
This accelerator programme offers bespoke, highly targeted innovation support to help companies grow rapidly and sustainably through strategic guidance and hands-on expertise.
Often, major challenges occur when companies have matured beyond the start-up phase and need to secure growth finance, put executive board and governance structures in place, and take their sales and marketing machine to the next level. These challenges can easily become blockages to growth. SETsquared provides help to navigate efficiently past these, and other, roadblocks.
We want to hear from entrepreneurs who have a business with unique intellectual property and/or an innovative business model. You will have built a small team, will likely be generating revenue in excess of six figures and, most importantly, you will have serious ambition to achieve double-digit growth annually.
The SETsquared Partnership is regarded as the most successful university business incubation centre in the world. A partnership of six research-intensive universities including the University of Southampton, it exists to give knowledge-based companies the support they need to become global leaders.
Supported by
The SETsquared Partnership
Companies incubated
Investment raised
Jobs created
How it works
Access to the SETsquared Business Growth Programme is available exclusively to SETsquared members looking for tailored scale-up support.
Applications are invited at any time of year since all projects are geared to the specific needs of the business. It is easy to apply via our online application form. Simply articulate the specific growth barrier or commercialisation challenge your business is facing and what your business could achieve if this could be removed. Successful applicants will be invited to give a brief presentation.
On acceptance to the programme, companies are matched with the most appropriate mentor to work with on a project basis.
Up to 12 hours of executive coaching and innovation support is provided as part of the SETsquared membership. In addition, a fully funded grant of up to £5,000 is available to spend addressing the company’s specific growth inhibiting problem.
The mentors
SETsquared mentors are scale-up support specialists with deep expertise in commercialisation, investor readiness, and business acceleration. Many have successfully launched and grown technology ventures, offering hands-on innovation support and coaching from real entrepreneurial experience.
Our core team in Southampton comprises:
- David Bream is a founder of the SETsquared Partnership and is also a business coach for Southampton Science Park’s Catalyst programme. With a background in technology and business development, he is no stranger to guiding businesses from start-up to global leader.
- Adrian Braine has founded two companies that provide expertise in entrepreneurship, technology acceleration, go-to market strategy and growth. He has held international directorships, been a SETsquared Entrepreneur in Residence and regularly consults on commercialisation pathways and digital industrial strategy.
- Philip Sharpe is a business coach and a director at Southampton Science Park. After nearly 20 years commercialising technology at QinetiQ, he has been mentoring early-stage businesses for over ten years. His broad experience spans a wide range of technologies and markets, including innovation-driven scale-up strategies and executive coaching.
- Gary Smith is a specialist in early-stage venture funding, having successfully raised over £50m in capital and building businesses to initial public offering. As a board level business leader and coach, he works to accelerate the fortunes of a business, drive sales, enhance investor readiness and improve shareholder value.
