What we (don’t) know about scaling

In this short article, I discuss my main reflections and takeaways from the second edition of the European Scaleup Conference, which took place in Rome on the 10th and 11th of June at Luiss Business School. The conference is organised by the European Scaleup Institute, an initiative of eight top business schools in Europe on a mission to bridge the so called European ‘scaleup gap’ by sharing and applying our knowledge on scaling organisations.

I’m proud to call the second edition of our European Scaleup Conference a great success. And not only because as Executive Director of the European Scaleup Institute (ESI), for the first time in my professional career, I had a chance to go back to my hometown Rome and the university where my academic journey started. Well, I might of course be a bit biased, but there’s way more to that.

First of all, our number of participants has grown significantly, as well as the quality of our papers’ presentations (57 authors from over 50 organisations to be precise). More importantly, our audience expanded to include a more diverse group of experts, including academics as well as practitioners, policymakers and (serial) scaleup entrepreneurs like Victor Ranieri and Matteo Berlucchi . Especially thanks to their input and experiences, the ESI conference offered a conducive setting not only to share knowledge, but also and foremost to apply it to the world of practice.

We also had a couple of important new entries to our conference. Generative AI has entered the building, with our latest European Scaleup Monitor featuring a dynamic tool to compare high-growth firms across countries and regions, thanks to the hard work of Dries Faems . This allows our users to experiment directly with the data in order to create benchmarks and observe crucial differences and similarities. Also, thanks to Christian Lechner , a new ‘fantastic beast’ has entered the zoology of growths, next to gazelles, unicorns, zebra’s and many more. I’m talking about Kirin, a mystical Japanese creature personifying good luck and prosperity in times of transitions and symbolising both the innovative spirit and the growth and impact potential of scaleups.

While I am writing this article, I can’t but register that I’m leaving this conference with even more open questions I joined it with. If there is one thing that all our scaleup experts could all agree upon, is just that we know still very little about the dynamics behind high growth and scaling firms. To begin with, as Justin Jansen asked us: what is ‘scaling’ really? How do we define it? How do we measure it? And, most importantly, how do we replicate it to support other innovative firms with potential to grow rapidly and help them to make the right choices? Also, as we see a momentum around sustainable and social entrepreneurship, should we consider these firms as a different kind of breed when it comes to scaling? Or should we bridge the differences and concentrate on commonalities? Finally, to even bring a little self-reflection to the table as I could do with Erik Stam and Euclides Major : while we know quite a lot about universities’ role in an entrepreneurial ecosystem when it comes to fostering venture creation, what is our real impact when it comes to scaling ventures and how do we maximise it by engaging in talent and skills development?

My list of questions could still go on for a full page. Having so many questions might be confusing, even puzzling at times. I’m sure many participants felt a bit like that while leaving the beautiful LUISS location in Rome centre that hosted us these days. How do we go further, though? In all this rising complexity, a light at the end of the tunnel seems to shine thanks to the wise words of Veroniek Collewaert (she/her) . As she reminded us, we initiated ESI because ‘’together we are stronger’’.

While individually, we may know little about scaleups and the dynamics behind their successes, together we do know a lot. In fact, together we make the best chances for fostering high growth in Europe and building a leading scaleup ecosystem. If you share our mission, you will always find a valuable ally in the European Scaleup Institute.

There is in fact a last piece of good news from our ESI conference: as of the 10th of June, we launched our new membership scheme allowing other experts, academics and practitioners, and community partners, such as regional development agencies, public and private organisations managing ecosystems centred around innovation and entrepreneurship, to join ESI to learn and work together, contributing to making Europe a leading scaleup ecosystem.

PS: Many of you have asked already where the next ESI conference will take place. Well, as you may have understood already, I like home matches… So what else may come after Rome?