Every business needs finance, but that doesn’t mean every business has the same finance needs. The options available – and suitable – for your business may fall outside of more traditional forms of funding like bank loans, overdrafts and credit cards.
The range of business finance options available can seem daunting, but whether its grants, loans or equity investment you’re looking for, Opportunity Peterborough can provide independent and impartial guidance and put you in touch with trusted providers.
You can read more about different finance options below. If you’d like to discuss which could work best for your business, or how to access different schemes, Opportunity Peterborough can help.
Options for funding your business
Grants
A grant is financial assistance given by an organisation, such as a local authority or central government, to an eligible business or individual. While not readily available for all types of business or at every stage of a company’s growth, grants can be a really useful form of funding.
Grants come in two main varieties: 100% funding for costs such as one-off projects (a large capital purchase or hiring a business strategy consultant, for example) or as part of match-funding where the grant can provide a percentage of the associated costs.
These often enable businesses to improve sustainability, manage resources more effectively, or encourage innovation in certain sectors and stimulate the growth of SMEs.
Click on the links below to see some of the key finance and grant providers to consider for:
- Startups
- Innovation, productivity and sustainability
- Export and International Trade (link takes you to the UK Export Finance website)
While the availability of grant funding is limited, Opportunity Peterborough can offer you the best route to finding available schemes and put you in touch with relevant funding bodies. Talk to us to find out more.
Debt funding
While we’re all familiar with bank-based overdrafts and loans, debt funding refers to far more than you might think.
From start-up loans and revenue based funding, to asset-backed finance and hire purchase, there are a wealth of options available to fund specific projects and equipment, help with cash-flow or to expand and grow your business.
Equity funding
Instead of taking on debt, you could look to an investor to help fund your business growth.
Unlike debt, equity finance can give your business the cash injection it needs without the burden of regular repayments, although that’s not to say it’s without risk or commitment.
Whether it’s an early stage angel investor you’re after, or more established venture capital and private equity, Opportunity Peterborough will help to point you in the right direction.
The government has four schemes designed to help small or medium sized companies and social enterprises grow by attracting investment. Read more about them here.
Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding has become especially popular with small businesses and start-up ventures who want to raise the initial funding to get their new business or idea off the ground.
Crowdfunding accesses small amounts of money from a lot of individual investors to create a large funding pool.
This type of funding is usually accessed via an online portal which allows people to pitch their business idea and attract investment.
Like other forms of finance, crowdfunding can be in the form of equity or debt, but it can also take the form of donation or reward funding where the investor donates to a cause or business they believe in, or where they receive a reward for the investment – which is typically related to the product or service the company is offering.
There are many well established crowdfunding platforms available, contact us for more information.