The faster a company grows, the more important clear responsibilities, transparency and effective controls become. Recent research into fraud cases in Silicon Valley highlights the risks that can arise when high growth expectations increasingly diverge from a company’s actual development.
Another study on venture fraud underlines the importance of governance: in the sample analysed, startups with VC-controlled boards were 1.7 times less likely to be associated with fraud than companies with founder-controlled boards.
The takeaway for scale-ups: not only markets, revenue and the organisation need to grow, but leadership and governance structures as well. Scale readiness therefore also means governance readiness.
This is also relevant to the UpScaler programme: sustainable scaling requires not only ambition, but also structures that can support growth over the long term.
Sources: Venture Fraud; Weiss & Radoynovska, Criminal Deception in Silicon Valley, Organization Science (2026)