Founders. It takes one to know one.
Virgin StartUp was founded in 2013 by Sir Richard Branson with a powerful mission; To unleash entrepreneurial Britain so founders can startup and thrive.
We're building a better business.
Virgin is entrepreneurial at its heart, having spent the last 50 years starting and scaling businesses around the world.
In 2013, Virgin StartUp was founded by Sir Richard Branson to support the next generation of founders who are looking to do the same in the UK. Since then, we’ve helped tens of thousands of founders to start and scale … and we’re just getting started.
As a founder-first, purpose driven organisation, all profits are reinvested into Virgin StartUp to further our mission of empowering founders to start up and thrive.
In 2021, we became signatories to, and proud supporters of the Better Business Act which advocates to stakeholder, rather than shareholder governance.
Here to support UK founders to startup and thrive
1,000+ alumni have raised a combined £100m in funding
From our investment-readiness programmes
We're closing the gender funding gap. For Good.
Did you know that only 1 in 5 startup founders are women? And only £1 in every £100 of startup funding goes to women founders, and we want to change that.
At Virgin StartUp we believe that entrepreneurship should be equal. That's why we've made a bold commitment: our 50:50 pledge ensures we support and fund men and women equally across all our programmes.
By breaking down barriers and providing women entrepreneurs with access to funding, mentoring and expert guidance, we're helping to level the playing field - empowering more women to start and scale successful businesses.
One of the largest startup mentor communities in the UK.
We’re very proud to work with a diverse range of entrepreneurial experts as part of our community.
We host regular ‘Power Hour’ online workshops for our founders, offer 1-2-1 mentoring sessions and put on live events every month to support our business owners.
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