Funding and Finance Roadshow
for business innovation and growth

Funding and finance is often crucial in medium to long term business plans. There are many options available across equity funding, debt funding and grants. Each comes with its own pros and cons and some may be more suitable to your business than others both in terms of the intended use of the money and the chances of securing it.

Through presentations, workshops and Q&A’s, this event will help you to understand your funding and finance options and make an informed decision of what is right for your business.

This event is for UK registered SMEs, either revenue generating or who have an innovative product, process or service to help make the right choices to fit their strategy and give the best chances of success.

Attending this event will give you:

• A rounded understanding of the funding and finance options available to innovative SMEs
• Confidence that the options you choose are right for your business strategy
• Guidance on R&D Tax Relief and how to make robust claims
• Relevant information to your business through workshops
• The next stages of where to get further tailored support to help your business grow

Key topics covered

Investment readiness

Any investment ready business should be able to clearly demonstrate a strong team, a deep understanding of their market and competition, a detailed understanding of their business model, how the business makes money and what traction and key milestones have been achieved. More importantly, the business must know what the plans are once funds are raised, how the funds will be used to scale the business and what the key value creating milestones are that will ultimately lead to a successful exit. This event will provide an overview of the Investment Readiness Pathway, an initiative helping you to test your pitch deck before seeking investment.

Grant applications

For most businesses, grant applications are a rare task so have limited knowledge of what is available and little experience on the application process and what is needed to be successful. Grant applications can be highly competitive and take many hours of preparation to give you the best chance of winning. You will learn how to find the most appropriate grants for your projects and an understanding how best to approach your application.

Innovate UK Innovation Loans

Innovation Loans from Innovate UK aim to provide flexible and patient capital to support business growth at scale through all stages of innovation, and focus on the most important areas of the future economy, as set out in Innovate UK’s 5 year plan for action. Loans of between £100,000 and £2 million are available to suitable SMEs to fund up to 100% of the costs of a highly innovative late-stage R&D project with a clear route to commercial success. The loans have a maximum term of 7 years, and a fixed rate of interest of 7.4% per annum, partially deferred in the R&D and pre-commercial phases before the repayment period commences. Delegates will learn about the overall approach and objectives of the programme, the scope and how to apply.

Qualifying R&D Activity

The R&D Tax Relief scheme allows innovative businesses taking a commercial risk to claim significant corporation tax deductions. However, only a tiny portion of eligible businesses are currently claiming. This is partly due to the complexity of the scheme, unclear guidance, and uncertainty about which business activities qualify. In this session, you’ll learn about the R&D tax relief scheme, be given an easy-to-understand process for qualifying eligible activity and walk away with the confidence to make a complete, robust and defensible claim.

Agenda

09.30 Arrival & coffee

10.00 Welcome and introduction

Presentations:

• Investment readiness: Innovate UK EDGE
• Grant applications: Innovate UK EDGE
• Innovate UK Innovation Loans: Innovate UK
• R&D Tax Relief: R&D Tax Services Ltd

4 x 20 minute rotating group workshops on each of the subjects

Lunch and networking

14.00 Depart