About Young Company Finance

YCF’s mission is to provide comprehensive well-researched news and data on the financing of early stage companies in Scotland with high growth potential, to enable these companies and their investors and supporters to understand the funding environment, and the trends and developments which change it.

Young Company Finance was created by Gavin Don in 1998, and acquired by Jonathan Harris, its current editor, in 2000.  Besides publishing a monthly magazine which tracks investments in early stage companies in Scotland and reports on their progress, YCF runs an annual conference every September, and carries out research commissions for organisations which want to explore this sector in more detail.

A North of England edition of YCF was published between 2006 and 2010, and Jonathan Harris went on to found Spinouts UK, publishing research and news based on its extensive database of spinouts and start-up companies from universities across the UK.  Spinouts UK was acquired by Beauhurst in 2018.

From 2009 onwards YCF was a major contributor to the Risk Capital Market in Scotland and Investment Benchmarking Analysis reports for Scottish Enterprise.

YCF was acquired by national business angel association LINC Scotland in March 2022.