During 2022 the staff of Nottingham City Council have worked with their local partners to implement our Scale Up Action Plan. The plan is focussed on using the best practice from the ‘Subsidies to Entry’ project in Murcia to help us develop our own Early Stage Equity Fund for high-growth businesses.
This fund will allow our British collegues to support companies on their growth journey and contribute positive impacts to the local economy through job creation and fostering innovation in local SMEs. It will build on activity they have delivered in 2022 through their ‘Road to Raise’ scheme that supported 30 local entrepreneurs to become investment-ready.
In addition, they secured funding to deliver the Early Stage Equity Fund and in September 2022, we concluded a process of legal consultation to confirm the exact scope of the fund. During the Autumn months, they will be issuing a tender to secure a Fund Manager. When the Fund Manager is appointed they will be able to start promoting the scheme with the aim of it being operational in early 2023.
Chris Pook, D2N2 Growth Hub Manager for the region said: “This new scheme will provide fantastic opportunities for us to support scale-up companies in our local region for years to come and is testament to the success of the Interreg Scale Up project, which inspired this approach.”
