THE Northamptonshire Growth Hub should be the first port of call for anyone who wants to start a new business.
New Year 2017 has started well. You are full of brand new ideas and you might be thinking of setting up your own business but you’re not sure how to start. Or you might have already started and you want to make sure that your new business survives and grows.
The Northamptonshire Growth Hub offers a range of support services aimed at helping new business get started including our Ready2Grow project which might be exactly what you need.
Ready2Grow encourages entrepreneurship across Northamptonshire and helps to improve the capacity and performance of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). It provides funded support helping businesses develop and grow and is focused on supporting enterprises from early stage pre-start and start-up, all the way through to fully established growing businesses. It offers training workshops on topics such as Effective Websites and Developing New Markets and Customers.
Clients can also take advantage of one-to-one coaching sessions with specialist business advisers and eligible businesses will have the opportunity to apply for grant funding. The project will run until February 2019 and in that time it will have helped at least 120 new businesses get started, increased employment opportunities and invested over £3m in supporting SMEs in the county.
So if you’re ready to take that first step towards starting a new business or you are keen to help your existing business grow more quickly, then contact the Northamptonshire Growth Hub on 01604 212696 or email
When a client contacts the Northamptonshire Growth Hub they can expect to receive information, advice and guidance from an experienced adviser or a referral to one of our external partners for more detailed assistance in specialist areas – for example: finance, legal, marketing. The Growth Hub advisers are able to provide guidance in a range of relevant areas such as: business start-up support, choosing the most appropriate business structure, preparing business plans, identifying ways to grow your business, access to finance, access to skills, advice on the availability of external support. This is often a referral to our Market Place which includes six months free membership – see our website for details.
The Northamptonshire Growth Hub was established in November 2013 to fulfil an obvious need for business support for SMEs in the county and since it began has helped over 2,500 businesses. It is based in the centre of Northampton in the Innovation Centre – a state-of-the-art facility offering office space and meeting facilities. The Growth Hub handles between 100 and 150 calls per month, 60 per cent of which are established businesses with a significant portion from pre-start and start-up enterprises.
It operates a brokerage model with a single telephone number – 01604 212696 – or single email contact
Ready2Grow is delivered by the Northamptonshire Growth Hub partners and is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund.
European Regional Development Fund
The project is receiving up to £1,431,974 of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Department for Communities and Local Government (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for European Regional Development Fund
Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations. For more information visit www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.