Investment Centre

Accessing finance is the biggest challenge for most businesses.

We design and manage grant and loan funds for businesses to make it easier for them to survive and thrive. Providing public, private and third sector partners with fund management capacity and expertise to make the highest impact at low risk, achieving maximum value for money.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve managed grant and loan programmes defraying over £300m to more than 75,000 businesses, sole traders and charities, from the smallest start-ups to established blue chips. We have helped to create or safeguard over 40,000 jobs and leveraging over £600m of additional private sector investment.

Supporting Businesses with Access to Finance and Funding

By balancing pragmatism with stretching targets, we look for ways to deliver against our partners’ objectives not limited by contractual terms and KPIs.

We don’t operate a one-size-fits-all solution, we can plug in modules to suit different needs and can tailor the intensity of support you’re looking for, from delivering components of a programme through to fully outsourced fund management.

 

Business Grants

We help partners who are looking to stimulate economic growth or social impact, or are responding to market shocks or emergencies, by the distribution of grant funding. Whether high volume, small value revenue grants, voucher schemes or targeted large capital investments, we provide a robust modular approach to ensure money gets to the businesses that need it at the time they need it.

Our approach to grant administration has been rigorously audited and was cited as best practice by the European Audit Authority.

Business Loans

Innovative loan funding solutions, providing unsecured and secured loan capital to ambitious, high growth small and medium sized businesses.

Our experienced team of former business, commercial and corporate bankers operate at pace conducting robust due diligence to de-risk growth projects and maximise returns to stakeholders. From stimulating deal flow, through to intensive portfolio management, they have significant expertise and knowledge across a wide range of sectors.

Blended Finance

Businesses in receipt of grants to reduce risk often see significant growth. Wouldn’t it be nice, as we share the risk at the start of a project if we could share the returns later?

We can allocate grants blended with loans or equity; this is blended finance.

Aligning objectives means we can design and deliver funds that unlock opportunities in businesses, improve access to finance, accelerate project delivery, drive economic growth, and create returns to the fund for reinvestment. These new funds could be repayable grants or grants combined with loans to deliver finance interventions, through to debt/equity only schemes, helping limited budgets go further.

Consultancy

With over 15 years’ experience of delivering publicly funded grant and loan schemes, we’re able to provide expertise and capacity to compliment or develop in-house funding programmes.

  • We provide advice on the overall design of your scheme
  • Help you defray more funding
  • Provide support for challenges, such as tricky state aid cases
  • Develop the skills you already have
  • Prepare bids to funding bodies to establish a new grant or loan scheme
  • Provide general capacity to manage demand, including:
    • due diligence services
    • front-end web applications
    • assessment services, and
    • making payments to grantees.

 

Our last 3 years in numbers

Partners work with us because of our

Innovative & bespoke fund design

we implement the whole funding life cycle, from design to delivery covering all processes in-between

Transparent reporting & management

interactive dashboards and a dedicated account manager give you full visibility of a fund’s performance

 

Quick application, approval & payment process

our robust modular setup allows for seamless customer journeys

 

Due diligence

in depth knowledge of public funding rules, state aid and subsidy control is applied appropriately and proportionately including know your customer and anti-money laundering checks

 

Multi-channel customer support

delivered by a highly efficient, empathetic and supportive team via the applicant’s channel of choice

 

Robust governance & compliance

operating in line with FCA, ISO 9001:2015, and Cyber Essentials Plus with tried and tested processes

 

Industry leading deployment

the ability to deploy funds within days of conception via world class technology solutions, delivered with agility and entrepreneurial flair

 

B Corporation Certification

we meet rigorous and externally verified social and environmental standards, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profits with purpose

You’ve gone above and beyond to make sure things were ready on time and properly tested. It’s testament to the work you put into improving the process - we couldn’t have achieved this without you.
Power to Change
A huge thank you for your hard work and support on the COVID-19 recovery grants scheme. It’s been a challenging time for small businesses and the pace and commitment has helped them get quick access to much-needed support.
West Yorkshire Combined Authority
The support has been over and above. The thorough process and questioning of plans helped enormously to make educated decisions on the expansion plans. The financial support is great and the additional resource of having UMi support is massively appreciated.
North of Tyne Growth Fund recipient
The Digital Improvement Grant process was easy and well managed. The Grant helped our business greatly and turnover is improved. Bookings are getting back to pre-pandemic levels.
Visit County Durham Digital Improvement Grant recipient

Get in Contact

If you have any queries, or need help and advice, please contact:

Simon Allen

Head of Public Sector Services

simon.allen@weareumi.co.uk