WIREDGOV

We are determined to give entrepreneurs the financial support they need to grow. This new £37.5 million Enterprise Capital Fund will target a serious gap in the equity market for high growth small firms.

I know from personal experience, it is hard to start and grow a business, even without the added difficulties of the current economic climate. Raising venture funding is even harder. Our aim is to establish Episode 1 as the best place to come for early stage technology entrepreneurs looking for up to £2 million of funding.

We’ve raised the money for the fund from other entrepreneurs and successful business people, and this has been supplemented by the finance matching from the UK government which enables us to invest and help more high growth UK businesses with global-market aspirations.

1. Enterprise Capital Funds were established to address a market weakness in the provision of equity finance to innovative small and medium sized enterprises, and are a joint public-private venture. Since 2006, £197 million has been invested in over 160 companies.

2. Enterprise Capital Funds are one of a range of government-backed schemes totalling £2.9 billion that are being brought together under the Business Bank initiative. A further £1 billion of new capital will be deployed by the Business Bank in partnership with the private sector to further increase the amount of finance available and the choice of finance providers to businesses.

3. Across the 14 Enterprise Capital Funds launched since 2006, total investor commitment from the government and the private sector stands at almost £480 million.

4. The government committed an additional £200 million for investment into Enterprise Capital Funds between 2011 and 2015.

5. Enterprise Capital Funds aim to both lower the barriers to entry for entrepreneurial fund managers wanting to operate in the equity gap, and increase the supply of equity finance to innovative, early stage companies.

6. In the autumn government will launch a public campaign to celebrate GREAT British business success stories. Government wants to inspire other small businesses and point them towards the support that can help them grow. It will also launch a new strategy for how the whole of government will back them. This will set out a range of measures to continue helping budding entrepreneurs and existing businesses succeed.

7. The government’s economic policy objective is to achieve ‘strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries’. It set 4 ambitions in the ‘Plan for Growth’, published at Budget 2011:

• to create the most competitive tax system in the G20
• to make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business
• to encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy
• to create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in Europe