The number of female-led scaleups passing £50m turnover has grown 41 per cent compared to last year, according to the latest figures from the Scaleup Institute.
The 2025 Super Scaleup Female Index is part of this year’s Scaleup Annual Review, which was published in November. It showed 144 female-founded businesses have now reached the £50m mark across the UK, with 89 continuing to scale.
The annual index is designed to highlight UK scaling companies which are strong examples of commercial success, reshaping their sectors, as well as inspiring other female-founded businesses.
This year’s figures also showed a 17 per cent increase in investment into female-founded scaleups, as well as 60 per cent of the 144 firms having a turnover of more than £75m.
Of those included in the index, 59 per cent were based outside London, and the North West had 10 of those, the joint third highest number of all UK regions excluding the capital.
Within this year’s Scaleup Annual Review, Two Zero was recognised for its contribution to driving economic growth through scaleup ecosystems. Since its establishment in 2020, Two Zero has led several scaleup programmes specifically designed to address the challenges faced by female scaleup business leaders in Lancashire.
Amin Vepari, business finance and scaleup lead, Lancashire County Council said: “With the support of funding from Lancashire County Council, Two Zero has always aimed to provide targeted support to address specific gaps within Lancashire’s scaleup ecosystem.
“From the very beginning, we recognised that support designed for female-led scaleups was one of those gaps and Two Zero Female was one of our three initial funded support programmes when we launched in 2020.”
Two Zero Female supported well-known female-led Lancashire scaleups including Fresh Perspective, which has since gained several rounds of external investment to support the company’s ongoing growth, as well as Brilliant Trees Media, which has now opened a new base at MediaCityUK and earned large-scale production contracts with the likes of CBBC.
Amin added: “Two years later, we recognised again that there was a shortage of support for female-led scaleups in Lancashire. In response to the Growing Women, Growing Lancashire report, published in 2022, which assessed these gaps and provided recommendations, our Women Scaling Up Programme was launched in summer 2022.”
Through Women Scaling Up, which was supported by Lancashire County Council, Two Zero collaborated with Role, a Lancashire-based business growth consultancy with decades of female-specific business support experience.
The six-month support programme, which was two thirds funded to participating businesses, aimed to tackle the key barriers for women to high growth such as confidence, developing a scaleup strategy, access to finance and recruitment.
Due to its success, Women Scaling Up was relaunched in 2023. Over the course of the two cohorts, the successful programme supported the creation of more than 50 jobs and recorded a combined increase in turnover of more than £14m within the first year.
You can read the Scaleup Institute’s Scaleup Annual Review 2025 here.
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