Despite talk of economic doom and gloom, here are just 3 reasons why I think 2011 will be a great year for entrepreneurs and fast growth businesses across the north west:
- The North West Fund is here to provide £185m of equity and loan funding making investments of £50,000 to £2m into fast growth businesses across the North West. This includes specialist funding for local emerging sectors such as digital and creative, biomedical plus energy / environmental. Just the spark that businesses have been looking for to help them achieve their ambitious growth plans – I look forward to working with my clients to make this happen in 2011.
- MediaCityUK finally launches. A £650m new city built to service creative and digital companies. Large parts of the BBC are on their way; ITV is also coming and, more excitingly, a hot-bed of exciting new talent and businesses should flourish to support these Goliaths of the creative sector. (I look forward to taking a trip around it to check on progress this Friday).
- Despite public sector cuts and the demise of the NWDA, local initiatives like Techcelerate, Manchester Digital, Sharp Project, Daresbury Innovation Campus plus many others will step up to the plate in delivering access to services and support for new businesses – and further new initiatives will no doubt emerge to plug gaps as they emerge.
This is an exciting time to be living and working in the north west. Make no bones about it, its going to be tough plus I am mindful that we need to continue to build solid links with London and internationally, but so long as we can get our own entrepreneurial infrastructure firing in the north west then we should be in good shape for 2011.
