A focus on scaling female entrepreneurship in Scotland
Barriers to finance
In this blog, Sandy MacDonald, Head of Impact, focuses on how we can better scale female entrepreneurship in Scotland.
Scotland’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem is a success story to be celebrated. Yet, there remains too much unrealised potential across the country as many female entrepreneurs continue to face barriers to finance. As an impact investor with a focus on scale-up investment, advancing gender equality is a key component of the Bank’s work and we’d like to see more female-led businesses ready for our level of funding (from £1m to £50m).
The latest Women’s Enterprise Scotland (WES) survey, Women's Enterprise Scotland | Research published in August, provides helpful insight into the experiences of female entrepreneurs. Although women now lead 54% of all start-ups in in the nation, too few are progressing beyond this early stage. There has been a 61% drop-off in the post start-up pipeline, with women-led employer businesses moving into a scale-up phase falling to just 20%.
A serious structural challenge
The recent Scaling Scotland report, Scaling Scotland, echoed similar concerns, noting the scarcity of female-led scale-ups and emphasising that failing to support women to start and grow businesses means Scotland risks operating “with one hand tied behind our back.”
Scotland’s position contrasts sharply with global trends, where established women-led businesses are increasing. As WES notes, the gap between Scotland’s strong start-up culture and the low number of women progressing to scale-up underscores a serious structural challenge.
Beyond that, evidence consistently shows that fewer women feel entrepreneurship is a path open to them, and those who do start businesses often face early funding limitations, lack of tailored support, and fewer opportunities to access key networks
Supporting the broader ecosystem
Ahead of the WES survey launch, I joined a roundtable hosted by Carolyn Currie, CEO of Women’s Enterprise Scotland. The participants varied in sector and stage, but their experiences were strikingly similar: relying on small grants or personal credit to get started; receiving less support than male peers in areas like tech and AI; and encountering persistent challenges when trying to access networks and specialist advice.
When combined with the wider economic environment, rising costs, slow growth, and tighter funding, the progression barriers are even more significant.
More to do
In the Bank’s most recent annual impact report, we recognised that while progress has been made within our portfolio, there is still more to do. Over the past year we have strengthened our data collection, investment processes and market engagement – steps that have enabled us to become a signatory to the Investing in Women Code.
Our 2025 Equalities Strategy set out further actions to facilitate the development of a stronger pipeline of female-led businesses reaching scale.
Our first priority has been to support the broader ecosystem that feeds into that pipeline. Throughout 2025 we focused on targeted engagement, networking and educational activity – both directly and with partners whose work is already making a difference at earlier stages. That has included support for WES’ “Lifted” event series, AccelerateHER, and Ana Stewart’s Female Founders Summit, along with meeting many early-stage female entrepreneurs.
Listening and learning
Being visible in these spaces helps founders understand who we are, what we offer, and how we can support them when they reach the point of scaling. It also gives us the opportunity to listen and learn from the lived experience of entrepreneurs.
In tandem, we have conducted research into key opportunity areas for scaling female entrepreneurship in Scotland, including sectoral trends and differences between urban and rural areas. We look forward to sharing our findings soon.
Supporting our female founders
We also know that the underrepresentation of women in investment decision-making is a challenge. We’ve established the Scottish Women Investors Network (SWIN), which brings together female investors and allocators to grow their visibility, influence, and networks. Research has found these factors are important when female-led businesses are seeking capital. And we remain committed to developing senior female talent internally, as evidenced by our role as a signatory to the Women in Finance Charter.
Contributing to the wider ecosystem
Finally, we are increasing our support for female founders already known to us or within our network – whether through mentoring, tailored guidance for those not yet ready for scale-up funding, or ongoing support for portfolio companies such as Cumulus and Elasmogen. For businesses who feel we are not the right fit for their stage and focus, we aim to direct them toward other sources of support and finance. By doing so, we want to contribute to a wider ecosystem that encourages and enables entrepreneurship for everyone.
Scotland is missing out on significant talent, innovation and economic potential when female-led businesses aren’t provided the opportunity to scale. At the Bank, we recognise that we must continue to play our part in addressing this and ensuring that in the years ahead, our actions lead to meaningful, measurable change.