The Business Exchange Bath & Somerset Issue 8: Summer 2018 | Page 6

BUSINESS NEWS
£500,000 worth of grants available
to aspiring scale-ups
A new high impact scale-up coaching grants programme has
been launched for West of England businesses.
Business West is inviting applications from ambitious
businesses with at least two years of sustained growth,
who would benefit from a £5,000 grant to work with a
coach to accelerate their business growth.
Building on the success of the Scale-Up Coaching grants
scheme, delivered in partnership with Enterprising West
of England, Business West is launching a new High Impact
Scale-Up Coaching Grants programme, designed to help
both West of England businesses on the cusp of becoming
scale-ups and fully-fledged scale-ups overcome the key
challenges to growth.
With 84,162 people in the West of England employed
by scale-ups, the continued creation and growth of these
businesses is crucial to the sustainability of the local
economy, yet 47% of UK scale-ups said they felt there was
little support available to help businesses like theirs.
The High Impact Scale-Up Coaching Grant programme
wants to fix that by helping businesses access the training
they need, with a coach of their choice. The 2017 ScaleUp
Review found that the key barriers to growth for small and
medium enterprises are:
• Access to talent
• Access to home and international markets
• Building leadership capacity
• Finance
• Infrastructure
Further to this, 65% of UK scale-up companies said
access to leadership development and training will be vital
to their continued growth.
The High Impact Scale-Up Coaching Grants programme
has been developed to support businesses to overcome
these barriers through intensive and strategic coaching,
with a coach or trainer of the business owner’s choice.
The programme will be exclusively available to SMEs in the
West of England who have the potential to become fully-
fledged scale-up companies.
Scale-up businesses are defined as either growing by
more than 20% per year by turnover growth, 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; these businesses generally have at least
two years of sustained growth, the aspiration to continue
their growth, 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 to
receive a grant application form. Eligible applicants will
be invited to an interview which will be your chance to
demonstrate your business has the potential for further
Tara Gillam, Head of Enterprise, Business West
growth and meets the scale-up criteria. Grant payments
will be made to successful applicants investing a minimum
of £20,000 (excluding VAT) in leadership development and
management coaching.
Tara Gillam, Head of Enterprise at Business West, said:
“The High Impact Scale-Up Coaching Grants 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. 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.”
For more info:
www.businesswest.co.uk
01275 373373
NEW BEGINNING FOR BATH-BASED
FINTECH START-UP
i4C, a Bath-based fintech start-up, will officially launch its
exciting new offering to wealth managers and financial
planners across the UK in June. i4C is a software solution that
provides financial planners with a sophisticated but easy to use
web-based product, enabling the creation of simple or complex
cashflow plans to provide clear and compliant advice to clients.
There is an increasing need for financial
planners to provide clearer advice to
clients, especially due to regulatory
pressures and technological advances in
the industry. The application empowers
financial planners to help clients make
more informed life changing financial
decisions with clarity and confidence.
Founded in 2016, i4C was initially
developed for internal use by a firm of
financial planners based in Bath, Epoch
Wealth Management, as they found other
software on the market to be unwieldy,
inflexible or too simplistic. It was this
realisation that drove them to create
a