News / Scale-up
£500,000 worth of grants available to aspiring scale-up businesses in Bristol
Ambitious business owners seeking to scale-up could benefit from a £5,000 grant to help boost their future growth.
Business West has launched a new high impact coaching programme, with £500,000 worth of funding available, to help push the continued creation and expansion of scale-ups, which are considered crucial to the stability of the region’s economy.
Applications are open to ambitious companies, with at least two years of sustained growth that would benefit from work with a coach to accelerate their business.
Business West reports that 84,162 people in the region are employed by scale-ups, yet 47 per cent of UK scale-ups claim to feel there is little support available to help businesses like theirs.
The 2017 ScaleUp Review found that the key barriers to growth for small and medium enterprises include access to talent, access to home and international markets, building leadership capacity, finance and infrastructure
The High Impact Scale-Up Coaching Grants programme aims to help companies overcome these barriers through intensive and strategic coaching. The programme will be exclusively available to SMEs in the West of England who have the potential to become fully-fledged scale-up companies.
“The programme will support high-growth businesses who need leadership and management development at this stage to ensure growth continues and to help take their business to the next level,” says Tara Gillam, head of enterprise at Business West.
“In the long term, we hope that these businesses will carry on with their projected growth year-on-year, delivering more job creation, stability and growth to the local economy. This is a fantastic opportunity not just for the businesses who will receive funding, but for the wider West of England economy as well.”
Scale-up businesses are defined as either growing by more than 20 per cent in turnover per year, employee growth, or both, for at least three years.
Business West is particularly keen to speak to those with the potential to become scale-ups and the willingness to make time and financial investments in the growth of their business.
Both the Enterprising West of England scale up programme and Business West’s new High Impact Scale-Up Grants coaching programme are supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
Interested businesses should contact Business West via www.businesswest.co.uk/high-impact-scale-up-coaching-grants.
Eligible applicants will be invited to an interview and asked to demonstrate the potential for further growth and show that the business meets the scale-up criteria.
Main photo: Tara Gillam
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