Ready 4 Growth
| Dates run: | October 2002 - October 2004 |
| Statistics: | 210 entrepreneur participants |
| Funder: | EU Information Society |
| Delivery Partners | Barcelona Activa, Iven, Tornado Insider |
Ready 4 Growth was a £2 million transnational project managed by GLE oneLondon and supported by finance from the European Commission Directorate-General Information Society, aiming to provide practical guidance on critical growth issues affecting start up and early stage digital business in the UK, Greece and Spain.
The three main objectives of the programme was to:
- Improve the quality of business plans from companies
- Raise the capability of entrepreneurs to build successful digital businesses
- Increase investor confidence in the digital sector as a whole
ready4growth was a complete programme of support for entrepreneurs who are building innovative enterprises. The aim of the UK part of the programme was to fast-track 200 small and medium sized enterprises that have significant growth potential through raising the capability of entrepreneurs.
Key highlights:
The programme, which was free of charge to qualifying companies, consisted of three elements, a two day intensive workshop, a comprehensive manual and an online virtual knowledge centre.
- The workshops - providing practical guidance on critical growth issues.
These were delivered by real industry who had specialist knowledge of growing a successful business, and participants also had the opportunity to network with investors, representatives from business angel networks, NESTA, Seed VC funds, regional VC funds, technology VC funds and banks specialising in small firms loans.
- The handbook
As part of the programme businesses were provided with four comprehensive reference manuals written by the project partners and their experts covering all aspects of planning, building, selling and funding their business. The information in each of these manuals was specially researched to reflect the business needs of innovating companies and the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in growing their company and accessing finance, offering unique inputs from key professional experts.
- Online support and expertise
The Virtual Knowledge Centre was available to all companies who participated in the ready4growth programme. The Centre included free online 'ask the expert' services, a forum where entrepreneurs could debate issues and share best practice, and a free investment readiness tool which assessed a business' investment readiness and gave feedback on their strengths and weaknesses to access equity funding.
The results:
Over the two year period, ready4growth provided a series of free workshops for 450 companies across Europe and exceeded its targets by recruiting more than 200 entrepreneurs to the programme.
85 per cent of participants changed their business strategy, and 75 per cent found new marketing opportunities.
In the UK 36 per cent of all companies attending the ready4growth programme raised equity finance. This number was 14 per cent in Spain and roughly three per cent in Greece. As a point of reference, approximately five per cent of all businesses that approach the London Business Angel network receive funding. Therefore it could be suggested that by attending a ready4growth workshop ( free to participants), a UK company could expect to be seven times more likely to raise equity finance.
This programme was a pre-cursor of the Creative Business Accelerator, managed by GLE Growth Capital.
The partners:
The ready4growth programme was delivered in conjunction with Barcelona Activa, Iven, Tornado Insider, and funded by the EU Information Society
Contact us:
For more information about this project, contact Jenny Tooth, jenny.t@gle.co.uk