When it was announced back in January that Barclays Eagle Labs was to replace Tech Nation as the recipient if the £12.05 million Digital Growth Grant following a six-year tenure, it sent shockwaves through the UK tech industry.

The prevaling opinion was that Tech Nation had done an admiral job over the six years, even offering a plethora of metrics to support the argument – while 80% of startups fail within their first 2-5 years, over 95% of startups on Tech Nation’s accelerator programs have gone on to scale. It’s an eye-catching stat amid a public face-up that was soon followed by the announcement that the organisation would cease operations as a direct result of the pulled funding.

Thankfully, Tech Nation has since been acquired by Founder Forum Group, so it’s not a completely unhappy end there.

Above all else, all this begged the question of how Barclays Eagle Labs would fill the void once the £12.05 million funding became available in April. Likely knowing that there would be detractors and bad faith commentators, Eagle Labs came ready to answer its critics, many of whom question whether an FTSE 100 bank should be privvy to Government funding provided by the taxpayer.

The tech support network started rolling out materials in support of their Digital Growth Grant offerings in mid-April, stating that they wanted to provide ‘a suite of services, delivered through a panel of best-in-class delivery partners.’

Supporting the dissemination of Eagle Labs’ plans for the first stint of it’s two-year Digital Growth programme was a launch event, held at Barclays Glasgow Campus on 4 May.

The event saw a panel – mediated by newly-appointed Barclays ecosystem manager, Nick Murray – featuring the director of Barclays Eagle Labs, Matthew Corbidge – who said that Eagle Labs had started five years previously with him asking for “a 3-D printer above one of our branches”; CEO of AccelerateHER, Elizabeth Pirrie; Cambridge Judge Business School Entrepreneurship Centre Head of Practice, Ann Davidson and Project Director at Glasgow City Innovation District, Alisdair Gunn.

What are the challenges facing tech startups?

“It’s the usual: funding – even quite small amounts that allows them to make progress.”

So says Cambridge Judge Business School Entrepreneurship Centre Head of Practice, Ann Davidson. However, she also eluciadated on some other common challenges.

“Speaking from experience, I think it’s building the teams, particularly if they’re having to look outside the technology area.”

Davidson also warned against the pitfalls of buying into your own hype, without actually having any customers, saying: “I think with all technology it’s about being customer-focused and getting startups to focus on the problem you’re solving and the customer and managing the hype around that as well.”

For Project Director at Glasgow City Innovation District, Alisdair Gunn, he laments the deterioration of the hard-won networks and support pipelines built up in the business environment, pre-COVID.

He says: “That kind of the pipeline kind of dropped and dried up quite considerably in regards to new vendors, and taking that step forward.

“Now, we’ve kind of got to try and get back to the grassroots of getting into and reconnecting with the startup community and supporting some of the founders – that’s something that was lost over COVID.”

These challenges are even more prominent amongst underrepresented groups, an issue that CEO of AccelerateHER, Elizabeth Pirrie illuminated, saying: “I think a big challenge we have is mindset.

“In Scotland, and for women in particular, selling ourselves is of the utmost important, being able to say ‘I’m good at this, what I’m doing is brilliant. We’re actually not very good at saying those words, or indeed believing them.”

Rounding out the challenges facing startups, Barclays Eagle Labs Director, Matthew Corbidge, offered a holistic take, saying: “Taking a really broad view, from what we’ve seen over the last seven, eight years, I think there’s proof for consistent challenges, especially for ambitious tech businesses that we see quite consistently.

“First and foremost, is access to finance and capital, the lifeblood for these businesses and finding that funding in most efficient way – is it grant funding? Equity? Debt? What’s the most appropriate way?

“Secondly, gaining access and finding pipelines to markets and customers is a huge challenge.”

Barclays has already announced a respectable programme lineup for its first series, but Corbidge used the launch to also announce that Eagle Labs mentorship programme – a mainstay of the organisation – would be doubled to now take in 1,500 businesses.

What is Barclays Eagle Labs offering in its first series of Digital Growth Grant offerings?

In a bid to answer the concerns laid out by the panel with regards to the challenges facing tech startups, Barclays Eagle Labs’ first package of support, which will be delivered in addition to Eagle Labs’ existing activity, includes a series of business growth programmes, in partnership with industry experts, as well as access to mentoring and educational resources.

Combined with Eagle Labs’ existing activity, the Digital Growth Grant has an ambition to support up to 22,000 businesses over the next two-years enabling growth across the UK tech sector. 

Applications are now open for the first series of programmes which include:

• Ecosystem Partnership Programme – Enabling organisations outside of London, to apply for funding and deliver their own programmes that best support the challenges they are facing in their local area – whether that’s support for local technology businesses, mentoring for accelerators within that region or bringing together the best in class for a regional industry event. This programme will help deliver on a wider ambition that 80 per cent of businesses across the Digital Growth Grant and existing Eagle Labs activity are outside of London.
• Scaleup Programmes – in collaboration with Cambridge Judge Business School: business leadership teams will receive tailored coaching and access to scaleup-specific learning, to help address their bespoke challenges and achieve their potential. Later in the year, Eagle Labs will deliver an additional six-month scaleup programme working to support companies with a focus on solving some of society’s challenges, in partnership with Plexal.
• HealthTech and AgriTech Industry Bridge Programmes – in partnership with Codebase: a twelve-month programme connecting corporates to startups and scaleups. These programmes will enable startups and scaleups to forge connections with some of the UK’s biggest firms and relevant peers working within their chosen industry, with the potential to share experience, drive collaboration and foster further growth.       
• Funding Readiness Programme – in partnership with Capital Enterprise: An additional cohort of Eagle Labs’ virtual three-month programme of webinars, workshops and networking events, to educate founders on funding and to provide them with the skills and knowledge they need to attract investment and fund their business growth.

Later this year, a new programme will launch to support the growth of black-founded tech businesses who are at, or are about to enter, their scaleup stage. Continued support for existing growth programmes also include the Female Founder Accelerator Programme. Both these programmes support an overall ambition to ensure at least 35 per cent of supported founders come from diverse backgrounds in terms of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity.

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Aside from supporting entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds, a new programme also aims to help with the very early stages of the startup life cycle. Due to roll out later this year, a new programme known as Product Builder and also in partnership with Plexal will support entrepreneurs in bringing their idea to life – to create and deliver a minimum viable product.

To ensure the programmes deliver impactful business outcomes for those involved, they will have the oversight of an Independent Advisory Board, made up of leaders who represent the diversity and regionality of the UK tech ecosystem. The Board will offer advice on programme direction, act as a voice of the tech community, share best practices and promote the programme’s services.