N2 Business Growth Programme

If you are a business based in Nottingham or Nottinghamshire and are making plans to invest in a sizeable project to grow your business, you should consider applying to the N2 Business Growth Programme.

The Programme offers grants ranging from £20k to £250k to businesses seeking to grow via capital investment in equipment or infrastructure, exploitation of intellectual property and new technologies

Overseen by the University of Nottingham and managed by EMB, the programme funding has been awarded from the Government's Regional Growth Fund and the European Regional Development Fund to provide grants to help businesses grow faster and drive the creation of new jobs.

To qualify you need to note the following:

• The investment and associated assets must be located and remain in Nottingham or Nottinghamshire.
• The investment must create new jobs that will last for at least 2 years.
• No investment will be made on work already started.
• No investment will be made unless all other funding routes have been exhausted.
• The investment will cover a maximum of up to 20% of the total project cost (depending on state aid regulations), the remaining funding must be in place prior to the grant being awarded.

The investment will be made to support a specific project and will require a brief description of the project, its location, the start date, the number of new jobs created, total project cost and the amount of grant funding requested.

To express an interest, you need to complete an Expression of Interest form.

If this is successful you will be asked to submit a detailed application.

Examples of businesses that have successfully secured funding from the Programme are:

• Natgraph Ltd
• Sygnature Discovery
• Trans-Sport Ltd
• Raising IT Ltd

D2N2 Growth Hub is supporting the delivery of the programme through its N2 Business Adviser, Suhail Hashmi. He works with potential programme applicants to understand their plans and help them put forward strong funding propositions in their Expressions of Interest and Funding Applications. You can find more information on the N2 Business Growth Programme here or email n2@embltd.co.uk