West Midlands businesses urged to apply for new fund
The Midlands Engine Investment Fund will deliver £400m of new funding for smaller businesses.
A £400million fund has launched to help smaller businesses across the West Midlands grow and thrive.
It's the second round of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund, which offers firms support from £25,000 up to £5million.
739 smaller business have already been supported by the first round of funding, creating over 4,000 jobs in the Midlands.
The British Business Bank said the new fund "will help hundreds more businesses to achieve their potential".
The funding is designed to help smaller businesses with expansion, product or service innovation, new processes, skills development and capital equipment.
Paul Nichol runs ModPods, a firm in Coventry which designs and builds modular homes. The company benefitted from funding through the first round of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund.
Paul said it allowed them to expand: "We've gone from having 33 employees at the end of 2022, to having now in excess of 120 employees.
"Our growth strategy for the next four years will see those employees increase up to 650."
Another firm to benefit from the Fund is Second Home Studios in Birmingham. Chris Randall runs the animation studio and said the loan allowed them to move to bigger premises: "It made a huge difference, we could get going almost straight away.
"We were able to then work through our conversion plan fairly consistently and on schedule in order to get the studio on its feet."
A series of information roadshows are to be held aimed at people working with smaller businesses including enterprise agencies, advisors, accountants, law firms and more.
The first of these sessions will be held in Lincoln on 11th March 2024, with additional sessions held in Leicester, Wolverhampton and Coventry, and further locations planned for April and May 2024.