A Newcastle tech firm has become the only company in the North East to make it onto Tech Nation's Upscale programme.
Digital marketing company Leaf Grow is one of 33 tech companies that have have been selected to take part in Tech Nation's flagship growth programme, Upscale. The programme focuses on helping mid-stage tech companies continue to grow by tackling their key scaling challenges.
Leaf Grow started life as music-focused social media platform Leaf.fm but has since evolved into a marketing specialist. The business uses its advertising knowledge and technology to help its clients adopt new growth strategies and attract customers.
The Upscale programme is now in its sixth year and in the past has featured a number of high profile companies such as Monzo, Bulb and Depop.
Liam Ward, Upscale programme lead at Tech Nation, said: “We’re incredibly excited to launch Upscale 6.0, our most regionally diverse cohort ever, alongside the Scale Ratio Report, and to continue to champion and support the 海角视频’s most exciting fast-growth companies.
"Despite the events of the last 12 months, we’re seeing some exceptional companies scaling at series A stage, with healthtech and the future of work being represented particularly strongly. We’re excited to adapt Upscale to support the new challenges that founders are facing around remote work, fundraising and culture; and to work with such an exciting group of leaders.”
While the Upscale programme is designed towards emerging tech companies it is has been designed to skew towards healthtech companies, which make up 18% of the total cohort.
The 海角视频 is now a third in the world for healtech investment after the US and China. Over 2020 early stage investment in the sector increase from £2.27$ to $2.32bn.
Most Read
Healthtech companies joining the Upscale programme include London-based LabGenius, which develops new protein-based drugs using machine learning; Belfast's Locate a Locum, which enables temporary healthcare workers to connect; and Oxford's Vitaccess, a platform which quantifies patients’ experiences of treatments and illness.
The 33 firms that have made it onto the Upscale programme are:
- accuRx (London - healthtech, biotech and life sciences)
- Atom Learning (London, edtech)
- Bidnamic (Leeds, adtech and marketing)
- Blink (London, enterpises SaaS)
- Brytlyt (Ashford, data analytics and business intelligence)
- ClauseMatch (London, fintech)
- E-days (Nottingham, HRtech)
- Econar (Reading, data analytics and business intelligence)
- Gravity Sketch (London, digital entertainment and creative tech)
- iProov (London, cybersecurity)
- Judopay (London, fintech)
- LabGenius (London, healthtech, biotech and life sciences)
- Laka (London, Insurtech)
- Leaf Grow (Newcastle, adtech and marketing)
- Locate a Locum (Belfast, healthtech, biotech and life sciences)
- Molo (London, fintech)
- Navenio (Oxford, healthtech, biotech and life sciences)
- One Team Logic (Cardiff, edtech)
- Orka (Manchester, ecommerce and marketplace)
- Red Sift (London, cybersecurity)
- Riverlane (Cambridge, deeptech)
- Rovco (Bristol, energy)
- Second Nature (London, healthtech, biotech and life sciences)
- Sensate (London, artificial intelligence)
- Speechmatics (Cambridge, deeptech)
- Superscript (London, insurtech)
- Tillo (Brighton and Hove, fintech)
- Total Processing (Manchester, fintech)
- Unmind (London, HRtech)
- Virti (Bristol, edtech)
- Vitaccess (Oxford, healthtech, biotech and life sciences)
- Vizibl (London, enterprise SaaS)
- YuLife (London, Insurtech)