The UK's best growth
partners, curated
for you.
Every founder needs a buddy who knows the Startup Ecosystem. Programmes, funding, and everything in between.
60% of UK businesses fail within 5 years.
We're here to halve that by 2035.
By making the UK's startup ecosystem visible to every founder.
"I talk to early-stage UK founders every day who are drowning in options. PartnershipsBuddy.com is the first thing I've seen that's actually curated and matched, not just a list. I send founders here before I send them anywhere else."
"PartnershipsBuddy.com is a really useful tool for founders and scalers. It is intuitive and helpful in navigating you to really interesting content, partners and funding options. A great resource."
"The UK has incredible support for founders. The problem has always been finding it. PartnershipsBuddy.com fixes that."
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No paid placements. No ads. We score every programme against your answers and show the best fit.
The Founder Playbook
The moves that matter most, organised by where you are right now.
Starting
Idea to first customers. Building your foundation, validating fast, and not running out of runway.
→Growing
Revenue in, team expanding. Time to pour fuel on what's working and fix what isn't.
→Scaling
Product-market fit confirmed. The challenge now is speed, structure, and not breaking what works.
→Not sure where to start?
You have an idea but haven't registered yet. Guides on starting from home, online, or without money.
Not sure where to start?
You have an idea but haven't registered yet. Here's what you actually need to know.
💡 Start a business without money
You don't need capital to get started. Free tools, grants, and UK support programmes mean you can validate and launch without spending a penny.
Read the guide →🏠 Start a business from home
Most UK businesses start at a kitchen table. What you actually need, what you don't, and how to find free support in your area.
Read the guide →🌐 Start a business online
Everything you need to start an online business in the UK. From finding an idea to getting your first customers, without the noise.
Read the guide →💭 Online business ideas for the UK
Real, actionable business models that work in the UK market right now. Not dropshipping fantasies.
Read the guide →Starting
Idea to first customers. The goal is simple: prove it works before you run out of money.
📋 Register your business name
Companies House registration takes 24 hours and costs £100. Do it before you start trading, it protects your name, gives you a legal entity for contracts, and is required for SEIS/EIS fundraising.
Read the guide →🏦 Open a business bank account
Keep your business and personal finances completely separate from day one. You'll need a business account before taking any revenue or investment, most can be set up online in under an hour.
Read the guide →🌐 Get your first website live
You don't need an agency. A landing page that clearly explains what you do and captures email addresses is enough to start. Framer, Webflow or even Notion work fine at this stage.
Read the guide →🏛 Get your legal foundations right
Sort your company structure, shareholder agreement, and IP assignment before anything else. Mistakes here are expensive to unwind.
Read the guide →💰 Apply for SEIS advance assurance
Get HMRC approval before you raise a penny. It makes your raise dramatically easier, investors get 50% income tax relief and it costs nothing to apply.
Read the guide →🛠 Get your first product in front of users
Don't build in the dark. Hotbed, Zinc VC and Entrepreneur First all offer structured programmes to help you validate fast with real users.
Read the guide →🤝 Find a co-founder
The loneliest mistake is building alone. YC's co-founder matching tool connects you with thousands of vetted technical and commercial founders globally.
Read the guide →🗣 Talk to customers before you build
Building before talking is the most expensive startup mistake. 15 to 20 structured conversations will tell you more than six months of building in the dark.
Read the guide →📄 Write a one-page business plan
Not a 40-page homework assignment. A one-page plan forces clarity and you'll need it for bank accounts, grant applications, and early investor conversations.
Read the guide →🌱 Join an accelerator
Structured programmes, mentors, and a cohort of peers. The fastest way to compress 12 months of learning into 3.
Read the guide →💸 Apply for a grant before you dilute
Non-dilutive money exists and most founders don't look for it. Innovate UK alone distributes hundreds of millions a year to early-stage UK companies.
Read the guide →🏢 Find a coworking space
Working from home works for about a month. Then it slows you down. Coworking gives you focus, accountability, and other founders to learn from.
Read the guide →What funders expect at your stage
Before you reach out to investors, here's what pre-seed and seed funders typically expect to see.
🎯 A clear problem statement
Can you explain the problem you're solving in one sentence? Most pre-seed investors back founders who deeply understand the problem.
Read the guide →📈 Some evidence of demand
Waitlist signups, survey responses, letters of intent, or a landing page with conversions can show that real people care about this problem.
Read the guide →👥 A credible founding team
At this stage, funders are backing people, not products. Your background and domain expertise matters more than a polished deck.
Read the guide →📊 A rough idea of the market size
Being able to explain who your customers are, roughly how many there are, and what they currently spend on the problem.
Read the guide →📝 Basic company setup
Most funders expect a registered limited company, a business bank account, and ideally SEIS advance assurance from HMRC.
Read the guide →💷 A simple financial ask
How much are you raising, and what will you spend it on? A clear use of funds shows you've thought beyond the idea.
Read the guide →Growing
You've got something that works. Now it's about hiring right, finding more customers, and raising smarter.
👥 Hire your first 5 the right way
Your first 5 hires define your culture permanently. Get the contracts, equity structure, and onboarding right from day one.
Read the guide →🤝 Get your first enterprise customer
Accelerators and programmes like NatWest, Wayra, L Marks, and Eagle Labs have deep corporate networks and can be a good place to start.
Read the guide →🧠 Bring in expert firepower
You don't need to hire a CFO, CMO, or CTO full-time. Fractional operators give you senior expertise at a fraction of the cost, ideal when you're scaling but not yet at Series A.
Read the guide →📊 Get your financials investor-ready
Investors will ask for a P&L, runway projection, and unit economics before anything else. Maslows, Kruze, Accountancy Cloud, Ember, and Startup CFO all know the startup world.
Read the guide →🔬 Run structured experiments, not gut instinct
The best growth teams run 10 experiments a week. GrowthMentor and Reforge both give you access to operators who've done it before at companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Monzo.
Read the guide →💰 Raise your Seed or Series A
When you're ready to raise, preparation beats charm every time. Notion Capital, Seedcamp, and Techstars all have open applications, but an intro always beats a cold email.
Read the guide →🔄 Nail customer retention before scaling
Keeping customers is cheaper than finding new ones. High churn signals something fundamental isn't working, and investors will spot it before you do.
Read the guide →What funders expect at your stage
You have traction. Here's what Seed and Series A funders want to see before writing a cheque.
📈 Real revenue and growth trajectory
Monthly or annual recurring revenue, growth rate, and the trend line. Funders at this stage want to see numbers, not promises.
Read the guide →💹 Unit economics that work
Customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, gross margins. They don't need to be perfect yet, but the direction needs to be right.
Read the guide →📊 Basic financials
A simple model showing how the business makes money, your burn rate, and how long the raise will last.
Read the guide →🗺️ Competitive landscape awareness
Who else is solving this problem? Why is your approach different? "No competition" is a red flag, not a strength.
Read the guide →🎯 Clear use of funds with milestones
"Hire two engineers and launch v2 by Q3" beats "grow the business" every time.
Read the guide →🧠 An advisory network
Advisors, mentors, or industry contacts who can validate your thinking and open doors. Funders often ask who's around you.
Read the guide →🎪 A clear go-to-market strategy
How are you acquiring customers today? Is it repeatable? Scalable? Funders want to see a machine, not just early wins.
Read the guide →📁 A data room
Articles of association, shareholder agreements, cap table, accounts, key contracts. Having this ready speeds up due diligence.
Read the guide →👫 Team beyond the founders
Have you made key hires? Funders want to know their money is building a team, not just extending runway.
Read the guide →🎬 A compelling pitch deck
Clear narrative, strong numbers, honest about risks, and a specific ask. Practice it until it's sharp.
Read the guide →Scaling
You've found what works. The hard part now is doing everything faster without losing what made you good.
🏗 Build the leadership team around you
At scale, your job is to hire people better than you. Spencer Stuart and Notion's talent network are both used by Series A+ founders specifically for exec hires.
Read the guide →🌍 Go international the right way
The US is the obvious next market but it's littered with expensive mistakes. London & Partners and the Department for Business and Trade both offer free market entry support.
Read the guide →📣 Build a PR and comms machine
At scale, brand does the selling. Balderton's content playbook and tech-specialist PR agencies like Hotwire and Hard Numbers help you punch above your weight.
Read the guide →⚙️ Get your ops and systems right
Hypergrowth breaks processes. Notion, Linear, and Rippling are the ops stack most Series A+ teams swear by, get them embedded before you hit 50 people.
Read the guide →🤝 Join a peer network of founders at your level
The problems at scale are lonely ones. Helm (formerly The Supper Club) runs structured peer groups specifically for UK founders doing serious revenue, no consultants, no investors, just founders.
Read the guide →💼 Prepare for Series B and beyond
Series B is a different game, institutional investors, detailed due diligence, and 6-9 month processes. Index Ventures, Balderton, and Atomico are examples of tier-one European funds.
Read the guide →What funders expect at your stage
Series A and beyond. Institutional money comes with institutional expectations.
📊 Defensible metrics
Revenue, retention, unit economics, and growth rate that tell a clear story. At this stage, the numbers need to speak for themselves.
Read the guide →🌍 A credible expansion plan
New markets, new products, new segments. Where does the next 10x come from? And why is now the right time?
Read the guide →🎯 Board-ready governance
Board structure, reporting cadence, financial controls, legal housekeeping. Institutional money comes with institutional expectations.
Read the guide →📋 A well-prepared data room
Audited accounts, detailed forecasts, competitive analysis, customer pipeline, and any regulatory or IP considerations.
Read the guide →Find the right funding for your business
5 quick questions. We'll filter to loans, angel networks and investors based on your answers.
Here are your results
No paid placements. No ads. We score every programme against your answers and show the best fit.