Entrepreneur Programme Encourages NI Companies to Scale

Catalyst launches its highly successful Way to Scale programme to support 10 early stage tech companies wanting to scale their business operations.

With the support of Belfast City Council and Invest Northern Ireland, the programme will give a select group of CEOs the chance to participate in an intensive entrepreneur development boot camp that spans Northern Ireland and the USA in 2020.

Participants on the last programme have demonstrated extraordinary growth and are on course to double their cumulative revenue within 12 months and add over 50% to direct employees.

Kicking off at world leading technology and business university – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge MA, the week-long intense, residential, Entrepreneurship Development Programme will also connect Northern Ireland CEOs with 100 other international CEOs. Continuing with five tailored strategy workshops at Catalyst Belfast and culminating in another week long, bespoke residential in Boston, which will focus on go-to-market strategies and tactics that will deliver a defendable, scalable business plan for each company.

John Knapton, Director of Growth and Scaling at Catalyst said, “This elite, global programme will give Northern Ireland CEOs the chance to tap into an international network, to learn from the most experienced and successful entrepreneurs on the planet. To be considered, the individual must be the company CEO, demonstrate real revenue of ~£500,000, or have investment in place to grow and, most importantly, have an ambition to scale their business to £100M+ in value. Every single participant will come away with the confidence, ambition, leadership and strategic skills to succeed, as well as creating a lifetime cohort of local and international peers who can give them ongoing support.”

The 10 companies participating in Way to Scale 2020 are: 3EN, The AppBuilder, Automated Intelligence, BrainWaveBank, CADshare, Cattle Eye, Core Systems, Datactics, Humain and TeamFeePay.

Pictured L-R Stephen Wightman from Invest NI, Brendan McGoran from Belfast City Council, Patricia O’Hagan from Core Systems and John Knapton from Catalyst.