Techscaler Programme 2022-2024: early evaluation - executive summary

Early indicative impact assessment

Consideration of soft and hard impacts

In line with the evaluation objectives, the research considered “softer” outcomes such as the enhancement of members’ capabilities and connections, alongside some early “hard” impacts such as investment, jobs and output, to help indicate whether the programme is on track to deliver longer-term results. Significant harder impacts are not necessarily anticipated at this still early stage of the programme but are expected further down the line as the softer impacts translate into business growth for some companies. Nevertheless, even an early evaluation provides an opportunity to assess the extent to which these outcomes are emerging.

An independent early indicative Economic Impact Assessment (EIA) was, therefore, also undertaken as part of the evaluation, which sought to quantify the economic benefits and impacts achieved as a direct result of supported members’ engagement with the Techscaler Programme. In line with the stated objective of this evaluation, the EIA focused on impacts that have been achieved to date. The main report also includes an appendix with forecasted impacts and benefits as well as a detailed technical note.

Softer impacts

As noted earlier, the feedback captured from engaged members of the Techscaler Programme highlighted high levels of satisfaction with the support accessed. This is further reflected in the wide range of softer impacts achieved as a direct result of engaging with the programme and accessing Techscaler support.

Confidence and motivation

Survey participants reported increased confidence and motivation through Techscaler Programme engagement.

Mentorship was also highlighted as valued programme support, providing reassurance, constructive challenge, and a trusted sounding board. While international programmes and peer interactions were seen as confidence-building, broadening ambition and mindset.

Skills development

Survey participants reported that Techscaler’s education programmes (Startup Basics, First Steps, Next Steps) and mentorship helped founders improve knowledge of startup fundamentals, business models, and growth strategies. Founders reported that skills development extended beyond technical know-how to include leadership, investor readiness, and organisational design.

Further, Techscaler Programme mentors who responded to the mentor survey confirmed mentees gained sharper focus on priorities and improved strategic thinking from the mentoring support they received.

Building networks and community and cultural and mindset shifts

The Techscaler members survey also found early signs of a shift toward a more entrepreneurial mindset, with founders reporting improved resilience and openness to learning. As an example, satisfaction with international programmes was high and the primary research intimates that exposure to global ecosystems (for example, Silicon Valley, Singapore) can encourage founders to think bigger and adopt best practices.

Partnership and ecosystem connectivity

The Techscaler members survey also found that engagement in the programme had helped founders to develop new working relationships, contacts, and networks. Being part of a ‘community’ was also valued (for members and mentors alike). Other impacts reported by members includes improved understanding of, and access to, ecosystem support. The primary research found that mentors play an important role in helping to connect mentees into other Techscaler Programme and wider ecosystem support.

Early indication Economic Impact Assessment (EIA)

Methodological limitations

The analysis is based on a standard economic impacts assessment model using a mix of data collected directly from supported beneficiaries and economic coefficient and metrics sourced from official government databases.

We note that while this method is well suited to assess impacts and benefits over a short to medium term, an assessment over a longer time horizon relying only on this methodology may fail to capture or not accurately reflect the specific nature of tech ecosystem growth.

Wider factors include power-law dynamics of typical of start-up ecosystems (whereby a small number of high-performing firms can drive overall success), agglomeration/clustering, and spillover effects such as talent recycling, investment attraction and secondary entrepreneurship.

This has the following implications for the results presented in this chapter and in the appendix in the main report:

• “to date” analysis: over a two-year period (start 2023-2024 to end 2024-2025), it is unlikely that these innovation ecosystem specific dynamics and spillover impacts would have already begun to occur.
• “forecast” analysis: projecting up to 10-years from the first instance of support, it becomes more likely that innovation ecosystem dynamics and spillover effects begin to accrue. As the model does not fully capture these potential effects, it is possible that the forecast analysis may underestimate economic impacts.

We would note that these types of impacts are difficult to quantify, and a mixed methods approach supplemented by case studies may be an appropriate way to capture agglomeration and spillover impacts.

EIA assessment

The impact assessment identifies that the Techscaler Programme has generated the following impacts and benefits to date against a real term cost (uprated to 2025) of £23.6 million:

Net additional economic impacts^[4]:

• FTE jobs: 100 — 130.
• GVA: £16 million - £19 million.
• Turnover: £27 million - £33 million.

From the data, we would also note the following observations:

• additionality (considered as the net additional impact set against the gross impacts) is 23%. This is relatively low and reflects the early stage of the programme — not many companies have generated an impact so the absolute attribution to the Techscaler Programme is limited.
• level of engagement with the programme — almost four of every five companies (80%) in the survey sample were classified as engagement level 2 (some) or 3 (a lot). Only 2% of the sample were classified as level 4 (most engaged).
• stage of company — 69% were ideation/early-stage companies, which broadly reflects the membership base.
• this way of measuring additionality, while widely used, relies on members’ views of the contribution of Techscaler to their business growth and is, necessarily, subjective.

In recognition of the longer lead in times for support programmes of this nature to generate quantifiable benefits, using the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB) SNIB definition of a ‘scaleup’ company a) at least 10 employees initially, and b) growth in staff or turnover of ≥20% per annum, on average. A total of 12 companies (17% of the survey sample) would meet the criteria for scaleup over the next ten years if they were to deliver against their forecast performance.

If future forecasts are realised, over ten years the support delivered to date could help raise (net additional) turnover in the tech sector by £250 million.^[5]

Lessons learned

• Modest impacts to date — it is early in the programme’s delivery cycle, and this is not unexpected. This aligns with wider evaluation findings which suggest that there could be an increased focus on growth and scaling.
• Future evaluations of the programme should use a mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) approach to account for the specific nature of tech ecosystems.