{"id":74362,"date":"2016-09-21T16:10:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T16:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=839bbc1a44eb2873a18b2f92629375ba"},"modified":"2016-09-21T16:10:58","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T16:10:58","slug":"news-story-scale-ups-on-the-agenda-for-small-business-minister-in-manchester-and-stoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=74362","title":{"rendered":"News story: Scale-ups on the agenda for Small Business Minister in Manchester and Stoke"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>A new \u00a340 million entrepreneur fund backed by the <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/british-business-bank.co.uk\">British Business Bank<\/a> was <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/british-business-bank.co.uk\/minister-small-business-announces-new-40m-british-business-bank-backed-enterprise-capital-fund-scaleup-businesses\/\">announced today<\/a> (21 September 2016) by Small Business Minister Margot James, as she met with entrepreneurs in the Midlands and north-west.<\/p>\n<p>The 21st of its kind, the new <a rel=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/british-business-bank.co.uk\/ourpartners\/enterprise-capital-funds\/\">Enterprise Capital Fund<\/a> is supported with \u00a326 million from the government-owned British Business Bank. The fund will offer a total investment capacity of \u00a340 million designed to specifically help rapid growth businesses scale up. Active Private Equity, which specialises in helping consumer-focused businesses grow their brands and build the infrastructure needed to scale up successfully, will run the fund.<\/p>\n<p>Margot James made the announcement in Manchester during the Scale-Up Institute\u2019s regional economic growth programme, which brings together Local Enterprise Partnerships, Growth Hubs, business schools and entrepreneurs to help drive local growth.<\/p>\n<p>Small Business Minister Margot James said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"last-child\">Small businesses are at the heart of our economy and the whole country benefits when they grow and create jobs for people. The government-owned British Business Bank is helping more than 48,000 businesses with over \u00a33.1 billion of support, much of it going to those with high-growth potential.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The minister went on to visit 3 different organisations in Manchester which all support small and medium sized firms. Tech North, Rise and Central Working are housed on a single site in Deansgate and provide high-tech work spaces and support for start-ups looking to scale up and grow.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the day, Margot James attended a meeting hosted by Emma Bridgwater Pottery in Stoke-on-Trent, which recently announced plans for a \u00a31 million expansion to create 70 new jobs.<\/p>\n<p>As the newly appointed local growth champion for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, the minister met with local businesses and representatives from the Local Enterprise Partnership (<abbr title=\"Local Enterprise Partnership\">LEP<\/abbr>) to hear about the issues that matter most to them. Other businesses attending the meeting included Valentine Clays, Dermal Technology Laboratories, Woolcool, and Lister Trade Frames.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new \u00a340 million entrepreneur fund backed by the British Business Bank was announced today by Small Business Minister Margot James.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}