Create Growth Programme

Historically, the Creative Industries have struggled to obtain the necessary level of investment to grow and scale, in part due to investors’ limited understanding of the opportunities for investing in the sector. Investors generally look for scalability and defensible intellectual property (IP) which can be a challenge for creative businesses.

In addition, founders in creative businesses tend to be specialists in their discipline rather than in business, which leads to a broad lack of business skill and understanding. Finally, many smaller businesses aren’t static in terms of size and can have multiple or varied project and IP funding models, such as crowdfunding.

The competition was split into two phases: Grant Funding and Investor Partnerships. The first Grant Funding phase is now complete, offering a grant of £10,000-£30,000 for eligible project costs. The ongoing Investor Partnerships phase aims to address the ‘equity investment gap’ by encouraging highly innovative micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to attract investment that is aligned to early-stage research and development grant support. This will enable them to attract the necessary level of follow-on investment as they scale and grow.

Working with each region’s combined authorities, the programme offers targeted support to eligible businesses to help unlock their growth potential. Each region is delivering bespoke support that responds to the specific needs of their local creative businesses.

Innovate UK Business Connect are delivering investor focused activities, including networking and pitching events, mapping
of current and potential investment in the sector, and resources to support the understanding of investment opportunities. We will be working with investors at a national and local level to better understand the investment opportunities in the creative industries.

The Create Growth Programme will deliver several direct outcomes and a lasting impact across the creative sector in England.

The collaboration between Investor Networks and Innovate UK will put capitol in to the regions through the competitions, help to leverage investor partnerships with creative businesses, whilst increased investor understanding of regional creative sector opportunities will sow the seeds for future investment beyond the programme.

By tailoring the support programme to meet the needs of the businesses, the programme will also create a stronger, growing and better-equipped creative sector. It will help to build meaningful relationships between founders and investors, driving increased regional investment to boost growth outside of London, and improve regional understanding of the broader creative network.