Founders. Funding. Firsts. Our 2025 in Review

2025 was a year of momentum for Grand Scale, marked by programme milestones, international collaboration, and founders achieving breakthroughs across sustainability, space, and science-driven innovation.

Across the UK and beyond, we worked alongside entrepreneurs, universities, corporates, and policymakers to strengthen commercial capability and unlock growth. From landmark graduations to first-of-their-kind product launches, here are some of the highlights that defined our year.

 

1. Closing the Year with Connect to Success

As the year drew to a close, the graduation of the Connect to Success (C2S) Northern Ireland mentoring programme marked a meaningful milestone for Grand Scale. As part of the inaugural cohort, we were proud to be matched with Goldman Sachs, gaining strategic insight and support alongside an exceptional community of founders and partners.

The programme concluded with a powerful graduation ceremony, where Secretary Hillary Clinton spoke to the importance of initiatives like C2S in fostering leadership, ambition, and long-term impact.

2. Delivering Impact Across the UK Innovation Ecosystem

 

Advancing Research Commercialisation Nationally: ICURe Finale

In 2025, we wrapped up our three-year role delivering Kickstart for ICURe with Innovate UK, supporting 75 spinouts and more than 180 innovation leaders on their commercialisation journey.

These results reflect Kickstart’s effectiveness in accelerating commercial outcomes, strengthening business foundations, supporting the market success of ICURe spinouts, and enabling teams to progress towards financial self-sufficiency.

Scaling Ambition in Scotland

We also partnered with Scottish Enterprise and Opportunity North East to deliver the Grand Scale Kickstart for Growth programme, aimed at helping high-growth companies from across Scotland refine their commercial strategy and sharpen their go-to-market approach.

The nine-week programme combined in-person workshops, online training, expert mentorship, and a peer community to support founders and leadership teams in developing international market entry plans, accelerating business growth, and boosting investor readiness. Ten ambitious ventures from diverse sectors including digital technology, biotech, and food manufacturing took part in the pilot cohort.

Igniting Net Zero Innovation in Northern Ireland: QUB Ignite 

In Northern Ireland, we worked with eight Queen’s University Belfast research teams developing sustainability-focused innovations through Grand Scale Ignite, funded by HEIF via the Department for the Economy NI.

The 8-week programme equipped teams with the entrepreneurial acumen and practical commercial skills to test and validate their concepts, define routes to market, and engage funding and investment as they progress net zero research towards viable venture opportunities.

Supporting Women Entrepreneurs Globally

One of the highlights of our year was supporting the remarkable community of women entrepreneurs in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women programme. We delivered a global masterclass attended by 248 founders across 42 countries, focused on helping women strengthen their sales engines and apply practical commercial strategies to drive sustainable growth.

We were equally honoured to serve as the keynote speaker at the programme’s graduation ceremony, sharing the Grand Scale origin story and our vision for a future where more women founders can scale on their own terms.

Celebrating Client Wins

Across every cohort and every programme, we’re reminded of why we do this work: to support founders who are building solutions with purpose — tackling environmental challenges, strengthening communities, and advancing technologies that can change lives.

As this community grows, so do the stories that inspire us! Here are two we’re especially proud to celebrate this past year:

 

Viridi — Launching Vireya™

This year, Viridi launched the world’s first CO₂-based anionic surfactant: Vireya™, a breakthrough product that turns captured CO₂ into one of the most widely used building blocks in everyday essentials — from dishwashing liquids to bodywash and cosmetics.
The result: a 70% lower product carbon footprint and a radical step forward for sustainability in consumer goods and home-care products.

First Orbital Mission for Frontier Space

This year, Frontier Space completed its first orbital mission, successfully validating key technologies aboard its SpaceLab Mark 1 research platform — a compact, self-contained laboratory designed for microgravity experiments.

Launched in April on a SpaceX Bandwagon-3 flight in partnership with ATMOS Space Cargo, the mission confirmed that Frontier’s core systems operate reliably in low Earth orbit, laying the foundation for space-based pharmaceutical R&D and biomanufacturing.

 

What’s Coming in 2026

 

Kickstart Innovation Cluster Pilot: Glasgow City Region

 

We’re excited to kick off 2026 working in partnership with the British Business Bank to deliver the Grand Scale Kickstart programme as an Innovation Cluster Pilot within the Glasgow City Region. 

This fully funded, three-month online training and mentoring programme will support 10 high-growth, innovation-led ventures across the region to build commercial confidence, strengthen their go-to-market strategy, and improve investor readiness for accelerated growth. This pilot builds on our recent delivery of Kickstart in Scotland and reflects the continued demand for structured commercialisation support for research and tech based spinouts, startups and scaleups in the region.

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Throughout 2025, Grand Scale worked alongside founders, partners, and collaborators across its programmes to support innovation-led ventures at critical stages of growth. 

That work continues into 2026, with a renewed focus on expanding access to commercialisation support and enabling more founders to realise their potential. Alongside ongoing activity, new work currently in development will allow Grand Scale to support founders at an even greater scale.