North East England led the way in setting up public sector investment funds to support local SMEs. North East Access to Finance oversees the ‘legacy’ returns from these funds. To date, over £25m of legacy cash has been generated to re-invest in new ventures and growth businesses.
Working with Local Enterprise Partnerships and other funders, these returns, along with match funding, have helped to set up new initiatives to help North East businesses, targeted to support key sectors and areas of need.
These include the North East Fund – a set of five publicly-backed venture capital and loan funds in the North East Local Enterprise Partnership Area. Each fund is managed by an FCA authorised fund manager, overseen by an experienced team based in the region. They will allocate £120m by 2023. More details can be found here.
In the Tees Valley, legacy funding has contributed to exciting new initiatives such as DigitalCity, and the Tees Valley Combined Authority also participates in the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund. Details of this can be found here.
A key part of the team’s work now is overseeing the realisation of investments from the Finance for Business North East funds, which were investing across the North East up to 2016. Details of Finance for Business North East can be found at http://www.northeastfinance.org.
If you are looking for business support advice, please call the Government helpline on 0300 456 3565 or visit www.gov.uk/business-finance-support and search their detailed listings. For local advice, visit your local Growth Hub at either www.northeastgrowthhub.co.uk or ‘Tees Valley Compass’ https://teesvalley-ca.gov.uk/investment/business-compass/ depending on where you are based.
