Ambitious Bristol businesses with at least two years of sustained growth are being invited to apply for grants of £5,000 to accelerate their expansion.
Business West, the region’s largest business organisation, has £500,000 worth of funding available to aspiring scale-up businesses through its new High Impact Scale-Up Coaching Grants programme. 
Building on the success of the Scale-Up Coaching grants scheme, delivered in partnership with Enterprising West of England, Business West has launched the new programme to help businesses on the cusp of becoming scale-ups as well as fully-fledged scale-ups overcome the key challenges to growth.
More than 84,000 people across the West of England are employed in scale-ups and Business West sees their continued creation and growth as crucial to the sustainability of the local economy.
Yet 47% of UK scale-ups say they feel there is little support available to help businesses like theirs.
The High Impact Scale-Up Coaching Grant programme aims 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-ups said access to leadership development and training would also 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 with the potential to become fully-fledged scale-up companies.
Scale-up businesses are defined as either growing their turnover by more than 20% a 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; 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.
Eligible applicants will be invited to an interview where they can demonstrate their potential for further growth.
Grant payments will be made to successful applicants investing a minimum of £20,000 (excluding VAT) in leadership development and management coaching.
Business West head of enterprise Tara Gillam, pictured, 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.”
Interested businesses should contact Business West to receive a grant application form.
The Enterprising West of England scale-up programme and Business West’s new High Impact Scale-Up Grants coaching programme are both supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
