Business

Need help with funding your growth? Speak to Scottish Enterprise


For some Scottish companies ambitious to grow their business, a main barrier can be a lack of knowledge about how to raise funding and where best to seek support. With an array of private and public sector sources available, it can be a daunting prospect for businesses to know who they should turn to and when.

That’s where Scottish Enterprise, the country’s national economic development agency, can help. It can support businesses with a variety of flexible funding options including grants, loans and equity investments to help these companies achieve their growth ambitions.

Rhona Allison, a director at Scottish Enterprise, says she and her colleagues are there to help companies navigate that pathway and help identify the right funding to deliver their growth ambitions.

In Focus: Funding

Scottish Enterprise has a broad range of funding available to suit business needs through start-up, early development and all stages of growth. Funding options are flexible and include:

• Grants if your business goals are innovation, R&D, job creation and capex expenditure.

• Commercial equity investments alongside private sector investors if you’re an early-stage, high-risk, but high-growth potential business.

• Loan funding if you’re an established company looking for additional capital to grow your business.

 

She explained: “We’ve got a real appetite to work with businesses of any size who have the ambition to compete in the global marketplace, to be competitive, to increase their productivity, to be successful and to show sustainable growth in Scotland.

“Thinking strategically about funding is really important. Companies need to think not only about the funding that is needed in the short to medium term, but the investment that is needed over the longer-term to help them scale and grow their business.

“If a business has ambition to grow and is needing help and support to secure funding, come and talk to us if you’re not doing so already.

“Our role is to help encourage and stimulate investment into companies and to help ensure businesses have sufficient capital to realise their growth ambitions. We are committed to working with companies to help identify the right funding for their business at the right time.

Scottish Enterprise director Rhona Allison says she and her colleagues are there to help companies identify the right funding to deliver their growth ambitions

“At Scottish Enterprise, we recognise that companies can sometimes find it difficult to identify the right support package to facilitate their expansion. That’s why we encourage those with ambitions to grow to get in touch with us as early as possible in their planning process. Experience tells us the sooner we’re involved with a company and understand their plans, the better positioned we will be to help them develop those ambitions.”

A broad range of funding options

Scottish Enterprise can provide a variety of advice and financial support to help companies identify the funding that is right for them. The agency offers a broad and flexible range of funding options to support companies throughout their life cycle – from start-up, early-stage businesses through to those that require additional capital to scale and grow internationally.

Derek Shaw, head of investment management at the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise, outlined the range of financial support available to ambitious companies with the potential to scale and reach their ambitions.

“We are keen to support companies with genuine capacity to scale up. Equity, loan and grant funding are all available to Scottish-based companies with ambitions to grow, and we can help them find the right funding to meet their business needs.”

For example, an R&D grant could enable a business to research an innovative new product or service and, as it is non-dilutive capital, it can be attractive to companies and investors alike. Equity funding often provides vital capital in the early stages of a high-growth company where alternative sources of funding are not as appropriate. The Scottish Investment Bank can potentially provide equity funding of up to 50 per cent for businesses that have a gap in their overall funding package.

Derek explains: “The Scottish Investment Bank makes commercial investments alongside a range of private sector investors, including high-net worth individuals, venture capitalists and private equity houses, at various stages of a company’s life cycle. Last year, we invested £43m into 147 companies, leveraging more than £200m of private sector investment.”

Derek Shaw, head of investment management at Scottish Investment Bank

In addition, the Scottish Investment Bank can now provide commercial loans to established viable businesses that are seeking additional working capital, or funding to invest in their facilities or equipment that they can’t, for a variety of reasons, get from traditional lending sources. The terms of the loans are flexible and can be tailored to the specific needs of the company. Scottish Enterprise can provide loans of between £250,000 and £2m, and up to £5m in exceptional circumstances, to growth-focused companies that have a viable business plan and a clear ability to repay the debt.

As Rhona Allison summarises, Scottish Enterprise has a suite of support.

“For viable companies who may find it difficult to get funding through traditional routes, we have the ability to offer a diversity of funding options and can help companies make sense of the different options to get the best funding match.”



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