"We built the room where scale happens" - Sam North on the evolution of SME XPO

Sam North, Co-Founder and CEO of SCALE shares his own journey as the founder of a scaleup

Four years ago, Will Fowler and I launched SME XPO. We built it from scratch. Ran it for four years.
Then we bought it.

Becoming owners, and partnering with Andrew B Morris forced me to confront a harder question: If I was building this today — knowing what I now know about founders and growth — would it look the same?

Honestly, no. Because scaleups are different to SMEs. And the founders leading scaleups carry a different weight.

Scaleups hire ahead of revenue. They manage burn and boards. They make decisions that affect dozens of families. They sit in the constant tension between ambition and responsibility. It’s intense. It can be lonely. And too often, they’re surrounded by noise instead of meaningful support.

Over the last few years I’ve spent hundreds of hours with founders at preseed, Seed, and Series A. What they need isn’t another generic business expo.

They need:

• Capital that converts.
• Senior talent they trust.
• Customers that unlock momentum.
• Peers who genuinely understand the pressure.

And here’s the part that made the decision unavoidable:

We are a scaleup too.

We’ve taken risk. Brought in capital. Rebuilt the model. Felt the pressure to grow. This shift isn’t strategic theory — it’s lived experience.

So we evolved.

SME XPO became SCALE — a national event series built specifically for scaleups and the founders behind them. It wasn’t a cosmetic rebrand. It was a deliberate refocus.

We brought together an exceptional, driven team who believe deeply in backing ambitious founders. We built this with intent — with founders at the centre. 

Because this matters beyond our business.

Scaleups — and the people brave enough to build them — are critical to the UK’s medium-term future. If we want this country to thrive (and I genuinely do), we need to back them properly. With visibility. With support. And with pride in what they’re creating.

We can’t fix everything. But we built the room where scale happens.

If you’re building at Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A or beyond — get in touch.

This is just the start.