Chris Holscher

I help B2B tech startups and scaleups build and use Industry Analyst Relations as a growth lever — turning buyer and competitive insight and the market influence of Gartner, Forrester, IDC and specialist analyst firms into tangible advantages.

I am particularly useful when:

1) strong technology or offering is ahead of the market%27s present category logic

2) leadership must sharpen positioning and differentiation, unstall decisions, de-risk GTM or accelerate growth;

3) existing AR operations need specialist guidance on startup-specific AR practices – e.g. analyst profiling and prioritisation, AR strategy or business-impact measurement.

The results of my work include FT1000-ranked growth, successful growth investment, repeated leadership in major analyst evaluations and category-shaping impact.

For the past 10 years, I have focused my work entirely on startups, scaleups and their investors to help founders and leadership teams use Analyst Relations earlier and smarter than a generic “get into the report” approach. My approach is stage-aligned and no-nonsense: from minimal-viable to strategic AR.

For 20+ years, I have worked with technology innovators from stealth startups to global megaplayers and with hundreds of industry analysts across markets, categories and regions.

I also initiated and lead the independent State of Startups with Industry Analysts (SSIA) research programme with the University of Edinburgh Business School. With 850+ participants to date, and representing the experience of thousands of startups, it has become the largest research programme globally dedicated to how startups, investors and industry analysts interact – much of it beyond public view.