‘Funding education’ is highlighted as key to unlocking UK SME growth

Findings of research carried out by Liberis and released on the same day as our ‘Finance in the South West’ event concluded that:

“It is crucial to ensure better understanding on how to navigate the perceived minefield of financial options. Small business education is desperately required to increase awareness levels of the process; greatly benefiting both businesses and economy alike”.

Some of the report’s findings are summarised below:

• While 62 percent of UK SMEs said they need funding to grow and expand, 57 percent of SMEs were unsure which provider to obtain funding from and 53 percent did not have a set amount in mind when looking to access finance
• 22 percent of businesses require funding to maintain business as usual, while 5 percent need funding to survive past the first year of business. Speed of funding has been identified as integral to achieving this growth
• An increase in the popularity of crowdfunding as a source, with 10 percent of UK SMEs looking to use this as a means for funding in the next two years

We like to think that we are playing our role in ‘funding education’ by activities like our ‘Finance in’ events, which feature presentations from a variety of sources of finance, and cover the range of funding options, including grant, debt and equity.

Details about these events can be found here:

Finance in the South – date to be confirmed

Finance in Cornwall  (18 April 2018)

Start Up Cornwall (18 April 2018)