INSIGHTS / Blog

Cristina Lisii, Shott Scale Up Accelerator Lead at the Royal Academy of Engineering, shares her insights on how deep tech companies can grow in 2026.

What is the Shott Scale Up Accelerator?

Our mission is to support deep tech leaders to develop the skills and networks needed to grow innovative scale-ups, contributing to a sustainable and inclusive economy.

We are an accelerator delivering a structured 9-month leadership development programme that equips founders and senior leaders with the strategic, operational and personal capabilities required to scale technology-driven businesses.  Our offer includes training, mentoring, coaching, peer support and lifetime access to the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Enterprise Hub.

What makes us unique is our focus on individual leadership behavioural change as a driver of scale. Our support is highly tailored, purpose-built for deep tech, and delivered in the public interest – we take no fees, equity or IP.

In practical terms, we help founders and senior leaders transition from hands-on operators to confident, strategic business leaders. We support them to sharpen growth strategy, strengthen leadership teams, embed effective management practices, and build the confidence needed to lead complex organisations. Through the Academy’s extensive network and curated peer groups, participants gain the skills, insight and connections required to scale transformative technologies with lasting economic impact.

Applications for the programme are now closed. What exciting companies do you have, and what could they bring to the UK economy?

Each cohort brings together a diverse group of ambitious, high-potential companies tackling major global challenges. Some recent standout examples include:

• IONATE, which develops AI-enabled systems to create smart, decentralised energy grids that optimise in real time—strengthening grid resilience and accelerating the transition to Net Zero.
• Mimicrete, addressing CO₂ emissions in construction through self-healing concrete that repairs cracks before they spread, extending asset lifetimes and reducing maintenance and material use.
• Phlux Technology, which has developed breakthrough infrared sensor technology up to 12 times more sensitive than existing solutions, with applications in high-speed communications and advanced automotive safety systems.

We are also proud of the long-term success of our alumni.

• Notpla has replaced more than 30 million pieces of plastic packaging with seaweed-based alternatives.
• Oxford Ionics became our first unicorn following its acquisition by IonQ in a deal valued at over $1 billion.
• Paragraf, a pioneer in mass-produced graphene electronics, recently closed a £55 million Series C round, has grown through strategic mergers and acquisitions, and now operates internationally.

Since 2017, the Shott Scale Up Accelerator has supported more than 200 founders and senior leaders. Across this community, companies have collectively created over 1,200 jobs and leveraged more than £2 billion in follow-on funding, demonstrating the significant economic impact of deep tech scale-ups when given the right leadership support.

What are the opportunities for growing engineering and technology companies in 2026?

While access to late-stage growth capital remains a persistent challenge for UK engineering and technology companies, there are encouraging signs of progress. Our State of UK Deep Tech report highlights that the UK is a global leader in deep tech creation, but that a structural gap in Series B and C funding continues to constrain companies’ ability to scale domestically. Addressing this gap represents one of the most significant opportunities for 2026.

The British Business Bank’s increased commitments to venture capital funds and plans to support larger individual cheque sizes should strengthen the UK’s capacity to back scale-ups through later-stage rounds. Alongside this, the government’s ambition to transition the UK from a “startup nation” to a “scale-up nation”, including reviews of the tax and incentives landscape to better support both investors and founders signals a more coordinated approach to enabling long-term growth.

Talent is another area of opportunity. The establishment of Skills England aims to better align skills provision with business need, while our new Skills Centre in Newcastle will bring industry and academia together to help address priority gaps, particularly in areas such as AI, data and advanced engineering. Together, these initiatives can improve access to high-quality talent and support companies to build the multidisciplinary teams required for scale.

Regionally, momentum is building around place-based innovation. We now have Enterprise Hubs in Belfast, Swansea, Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool and Sheffield, with further locations planned, embedding entrepreneurship and leadership support into local ecosystems. This mirrors a wider shift across the sector toward strengthening regional clusters and unlocking locally anchored growth. As highlighted in the State of UK Deep Tech report, deeper collaboration between universities, industry, investors and policymakers at a regional level is essential to creating stronger pathways from research to commercial scale.

Taken together, these developments point to a real opportunity in 2026: to combine stronger domestic growth capital, improved access to skills, and more connected regional ecosystems to help UK engineering and technology companies scale with confidence and to build more global leaders rooted in UK innovation.

There are challenges, but advances are being made in the UK to help companies grow. How can companies position themselves to ensure they take advantage?

Regarding growth capital, Mansion House reforms, which enable the use of pension funds to unlock capital for scaling companies, are a huge promise. We need to see how that happens in practice and how soon those bigger cheques start flowing across the ecosystem. So far, we have not seen huge increases in scale-up funding, but it is a big promise.

At the Enterprise Hub, we are running schemes to upskill VCs, so they better understand deep tech. Similarly, other organisations are working to build diversity in the venture capital sector, ensuring that women and minority-led companies have better access.

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is advancing efforts to provide comprehensive, free training programmes and support services to encourage UK businesses to export and access new international markets.

As a company grows, there must be a shift in mindset. You must move away from doing everything yourself and minimising expense and start relying on experts, whether they are commercial lawyers, accountants, or specialised consultants who can support the growth needed. Hiring senior leadership is notoriously difficult; many first-time hires in scale-ups fail because corporate experience does not always translate to the venture level. Having recommendations from a diverse network of supporters is essential to finding the right talent and avoiding mistakes that could drain your funding.

Companies need to start with a mindset of ambition. The Royal Academy of Engineering wants to support leaders who aim to build the next £100m+ British company. My best advice is to get plugged into the ecosystem. Take advantage of the specialised support, knowledge, and international missions funded by Innovate UK, DBT, the Royal Academy of Engineering and others. These are the knowledge nodes that provide networking, access to peers, introductions to investors, and help you avoid common pitfalls.

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