Finance Yorkshire invests more than £5million
Finance Yorkshire has invested more than £5 million over the last seven months.
Alex McWhirter, chief executive of Finance Yorkshire, said: “The investment figures are encouraging and we are looking forward to providing more funding for businesses during the rest of the year. After a delayed start to have invested over £5m is a great sign for the future both for the Fund and for businesses in Yorkshire and Humber.
“We encourage growth companies looking to expand their business to get in touch with us.
“As the latest figures show, the investments are crucial to supporting business growth in Yorkshire and Humber. This will create a significant boost to the region’s economy.”
The figures highlight how the investments, made since August 2010, have helped 75 of the region’s small and medium sized businesses meet their funding requirements for growth and development – and secure millions of pounds of private sector leverage.
The £5m invested by Finance Yorkshire has seen the region benefit financially by more than three times as much through private sector leverage meaning the funding has helped the organisations generate growth and revenue to the tune of nearly £16m.
The sector split across the range of organisations benefiting is broken down into business services at 20 percent, engineering/industrial products just behind at 18 percent and ICT/software/telecoms/media organisations at 16 percent. Renewable, energy or clean technology businesses account for eight per cent of the overall investment.
Finance Yorkshire provides seedcorn, loan and equity linked investments, ranging from £15,000 to £2m.
Earlier this year S3 ID, the UK’s market-leading provider of innovative location awareness solutions, became the first company to receive an Equity Fund investment from Finance Yorkshire.
Finance Yorkshire invested £1.1m to enable S3 ID to maintain the controlled expansion it has experienced over the last three years.
Based in Rotherham, S3 ID offers a range of unique and patented solutions which improve personnel safety and security in the oil, gas, petrochemical and energy sectors.
Xeros was one of the first companies to receive a seedcorn investment from Finance Yorkshire last year.
The business, a spin-out company from the University of Leeds, has developed a new washing innovation which saves up to 90 percent of water compared to front loading laundry systems and gives the same performance as conventional washing.
Wakefield company Route One Highways Ltd started the New Year off with a £100,000 business loan from Finance Yorkshire to create a new brand strategy for the company, redevelop their website and take on new sales staff.
Matthew Pert, director of Route One, said the investment from Finance Yorkshire would “enable us to take the company on to the next level.”
Finance Yorkshire is supported by the European Union. It has attracted £30million investment from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of Europe’s support for the region’s economic development through the Yorkshire and Humber ERDF Programme, £15million from Yorkshire Forward’s Single Programme, and £45million match funding from the European Investment Bank.
For more information about Finance Yorkshire, please visit www.finance-yorkshire.com or ring 0845 649 0000.
Note: this news article is from Finance Yorkshire’s previous fund. Read more about Finance Yorkshire