StartUp Britain is a national campaign by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, harnessing the expertise and passion of Britain’s leading businesspeople to celebrate, inspire and accelerate enterprise in the UK.

The campaign was founded by eight entrepreneurs and launched on 28th March 2011 by the Prime Minister, with the full support of the Chancellor and HM Government, although it is completely funded by our private-sector sponsors.

How do we do this?

We are truly passionate about promoting entrepreneurship and its benefits to our economy and we do this by highlighting the myriad of support that is available to those who wish to start or grow a business, galvanising support where we see a demand and by acting as a voice for small businesses to Government.

This is a response from the private sector to the Government’s call for an ‘enterprise-led’ recovery. Our aim is to engage with over 1 million people in the next three years to take them one step closer to starting or growing a business.

So what's happened in the last 10 months?

Here are a few of the numbers since we launched in March 2011:

  • Immediately following the launch, Experian reported a spike of 25% in people searching for the term 'start up' online.
  • We launched Marketing and Tech4StartUp Britain Weeks, providing a week's worth of free events for start-ups. Over 3000 people either attended or watched the events live.
  • Over 190 enterprising individuals approached us willing to set up StartUp Local campaigns in their own area. More details can be found here.
  • Our Summer Bus Tour took us on a 1236-mile journey across the country, providing direct access to the support start-up and growing businesses need most. Over 2500 people boarded the bus to receive advice from experts and successful entrepreneurs.
  • Through working with great organisations such as The Supper Club, over 1500 hours of mentoring have been matched to young startups.
  • The campaign has also inspired further initiatives, including StartUp Saturday and similar international campaigns across the globe.
  • This is just a snapshot of what we've been up to over the past 10 months. In total, over 160,000 people have engaged with the campaign to date. That's 160,000 people one step closer to either starting or growing their own business.

Below is our six-month update video:

How you can get involved:

If you want to get involved and support the country’s future entrepreneurs by making an offer, putting on an event or becoming a StartUp Local Champion, we would love to hear from you.

To find out what we’ve been up to more recently, please visit our newsroom.

If you would like to know anything else about the campaign, please do not hesitate to contact us.