In order to qualify for an Innovator Visa you must demonstrate to the UK Visas and Immigration that you will be leading an innovative, viable and scalable business venture. To meet this requirement, the UK Visas and Immigration must be satisfied that the ideas set out in your business plan meets new or existing market needs in the United Kingdom and/or it is capable of creating a defensible business model that has a competitive advantage.

The UK Visas and Immigration will want to be satisfied that you have acquired or are actively developing the market awareness, knowledge of your industry, and the skills necessary to competently implement the ideas drawn in your business plan. You must also provide evidence that your business has plans in place for the creation of jobs and continued growth in domestic and international markets. 

You must obtain a letter from your endorsing body, which has assessed your business plans and is supporting you, to confirm that you meet all of the above requirements.

In order for your business idea to be endorsed, you must satisfy a Home Office approved endorsing body that your business is innovative, viable and scalable. You can meet the innovative, viable and scalable business venture criteria if you can demonstrate to the endorsing body that:

• your business proposal meets new or existing market needs and/or creates a competitive advantage;
• your business proposal is realistic and can be executed with the funds and resources at your disposal;
• you have acquired or are actively developing the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to competently run the business in the UK; and
• you have structured plans in place for future job creation and growth into domestic and international markets.

Your endorsement letter must confirm that the endorsing body is satisfied that you meet the innovative, viable and scalable business venture criteria. You must also satisfy the endorsing body that the majority of your stay in the UK will be spent developing your Start-up business in relation to which you have been granted leave.

The Innovator Visa route requires you to show that you have at least £50,000 of funds available to invest in your business or you have already invested £50,000 in your business.

You are permitted to rely on your own funds or funds provided by the endorsing body to meet the investment funds requirements. You may also rely on rely on other sources of funding such as funds provided by a UK organisation.

Depending on the source of funding, the endorsing body must confirm in its letter of endorsement one of the following:

• it is providing the funds of at least £50,000 itself;
• it has verified funds of at least £50,000 which you have available for investment in your business;
• it has verified that funds of at least £50,000 has already been invested in the business;
• it has verified funds of at least £50,000 available from other sources.

The UK Innovator Visa route can be used by sole founders or multiple members of an entrepreneurial team working on the same business ideas. If multiple innovators are applying for leave under the Innovator Visa route as part of the same business, each applicant must obtain endorsement from the endorsing body in their own right.

Each applicant must also show that they have funds of at least £50,000 available to them for investment or show that they have already invested funds of at least £50,000 in the business.

Where more than one member of an entrepreneurial team apply for Innovator Visa at different times, the UK Visas and Immigration will want to be satisfied that the funds of £50,000 relied on by the second application is separate to the funds relied on by the first application. The UK Visas and Immigration will also want to be satisfied that the first team member has either already invested the £50,000 they had available for investment or they still have it available for investment in the business.

The UK Visas and Immigration, as part of their decision making process, will carry out a credibility assessment to ensure that the Innovator visa applicant genuinely intends to undertakes work relating to and implement the ideas set out in their business plan.

You must, therefore, satisfy the UK Visas and Immigration, on the balance of probability, that you are a genuine Innovator Visa applicant and will spend the majority of your stay in the UK developing the ideas stated in your business plan.

The UK Visas and Immigration will only look for factors that may give rise to suspicion that the Start-up visa application may not be genuine. Those factors include, but are not limited to previous refusals because of genuineness concerns or there having been a significant number of identical or very similar applications in the past, some of which have proved not to be genuine.

In practice, however, the UKVI will not carry out a very rigid assessment as the endorsing, that issued the endorsement letter, would have already carried out its own genuineness test.

Endorsements can only be obtained from organisations that have been approved by the Home Office. The Home Office has published a list of authorised endorsing bodies (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/endorsing-bodies-start-up/start-up) that can issue endorsements for Innovator Visa Applicants. Only organisations that appear on the list are eligible to provide valid endorsement to support Innovator Visa applicants.

Whilst some endorsing bodies accept applications from all applicants, there are some endorsing bodies that only issue endorsements to entrepreneurs that they are already working with as part of their existing incubator programmes.