New Investment Fund For Small Businesses To Launch In Autumn

The chief executive of the British Business Bank, Louis Taylor, has announced that a new investment fund will be launched this coming autumn which will have £70 million of funding to help small businesses in Northern Ireland initially survive, but ultimately thrive and grow.

They want to provide funding which will give businesses the finance they need in the early stages of their development and which will also give them the opportunity to expand when they are ready to and to create more jobs across the country. The funding can take the form of small loans from £5,000 up to £25,000, and beyond that support for scaling up businesses with equity investment that could run into millions of pounds.

Ensuring Small Businesses Get Fair Access To Finance

Louis Taylor is quoted in an article in the Belfast Newsletter as saying:

“The British Business Bank is owned by the British government and we are there to help make sure the markets for small businesses actually do more than they do, and we make sure the small businesses get fair access to finance wherever they are.

“Some of our programmes are on a subsidised basis and a lot of them are on a purely commercial basis. The important thing is that the businesses we support have longevity and so it is about helping them to stand on their own two feet rather than always giving them subsidy.

Hoping To Attract More Private Sector Money

“When we put money into a business we are hoping to attract more private sector money in alongside us to encourage the market to do what it should do. There is a lot in the press at the moment about a lack of risk appetite among institutional investors, particularly for venture capital and what we are trying to do is to lead the path for them, put a little bit of government money in and try and magnetise private sector money alongside.

“So we have this fund that we are launching, £70m and this will attract private sector investment alongside us and the impact of that we believe will be much larger, running into hundreds of millions.

“This is not about £70 million going into Belfast at all. This is about £70m being available across the park. We have been in Derry-Londonderry and seen the vibrancy of the start up community there and there is real opportunity there.

“It is there to help boost productivity. Small businesses are really, really important for the economy. They employ a huge number of people, 60% of the UK working population are employed in small businesses.

“Small businesses innovate, they are more agile and they help bind communities together as well.

“They have a huge social value as well as an economic value. This is also bringing people into contact with other businesses and all the other things that small companies need in order to thrive. Its not just the money, they need mentors, a network of people to be able to talk to and get advice from, all of those things.”

It is great to see small businesses receiving help like this in the form of more funding to help them succeed in their area of work and long may it continue.