Business Growth Hub to unlock innovation and jobs growth with new scaleup programme

The Business Growth Hub has launched a new masterclass and support programme for aspiring scaleup enterprises.

With Spark2Scale, the Hub wants to help Greater Manchester businesses with the potential to unlock growth, create jobs and bolster the region’s economy.

The programme will run in cohorts during the next two years and is designed to help ambitious companies make the step-change necessary to become a scaleup – a business that has grown by at least 20% for three years running, employs 10 or more staff and turns over from £1m to £20m annually.

The Business Growth Hub said it will use a mix of collaborative masterclasses, mentoring, peer-to-peer problem solving and bespoke business support from its advisors to tackle the barriers faced by local firms keen to grow but lacking the experience or confidence to move forward.

Hilary Centeleghe, senior growth manager at the Hub, said: “Greater Manchester is home to hundreds of fantastic businesses with huge potential to grow but many find that taking the next steps needed to fulfil their aspirations is a real challenge.

“The Spark2Scale programme has been specifically calibrated to address this, and it aims to instil a positive, ambitious, and confident scale-up mindset.”

She continued: “Scaleups also drive innovation, create jobs and add a massive amount of value to the whole of the economy, so it’s crucial that the Hub nurtures and stimulates those Greater Manchester businesses on the cusp of achieving great things across all sectors, industries and markets.”

For its 2017 Spark2Scale programme, the Hub said it will choose around 50 of Greater Manchester’s most promising scaleup businesses, with the first cohort commencing in April and offering participants four intensive ‘boot-camp’ half-day sessions.

The scheme is fully funded by the European Regional Development Fund, which means there is no cost for the qualifying businesses.

Speaking at the launch of The Spark2Scale programme at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, Howard Simms of mobile app developer Apadmi Ventures commented: “When we were looking to scale up at Apadmi I realised that there were big gaps in our knowledge.

“The business was growing rapidly and the pressure was mounting on us to continue our strong performance, but we didn’t know where to turn for advice. Business Growth Hub offered a gateway to everything we needed to build a strong foundation for the future, and the mentoring in particular was crucial to our success.”

He continued: “The Scale2Spark programme captures and channels all of that expertise, and combines it with a really effective collaborative approach to unlocking growth potential. I’d therefore strongly recommend any ambitious Greater Manchester business to sign-up.”

The Business Growth Hub forms part of the Manchester Growth Company.

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