Neil MacDonald, NPIF Strategic Oversight Board Member and Board Member of the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership talks about how NPIF and the LEP have been working together to encourage economic growth, create new jobs and promote the Sheffield City Region.
Since NPIF launched in 2017, Sheffield City Region has benefitted from £10m of investment across more than 60 deals, which has enabled companies to bolster headcount, enter new markets and expand premises.
Valued at more than £33bn, our target is to help grow the Sheffield City Region economy by 10 per cent (£3.1bn) by 2024, and the support from organisations such as the British Business Bank who deliver the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund will play a big role in achieving this ambitious goal.
The Fund has been one of the driving forces behind our local economic success story, supporting SMEs across a range of sectors. The region’s historically strong manufacturing industry, which accounts for a significant proportion of the local economy, has been backed by £2.3m of NPIF investment. An excellent example of this is the Fund providing a six-figure loan to Cobra Sports, which develops high-performance vehicle exhausts. The funding enabled the company to expand into the motorsport market by growing its product range, and also helped create five new jobs.
More recently, the region expanded its reputation as a tech hotspot – a trend also highlighted by recent NPIF deals. This year, the Fund completed a £250,000 investment to support Internet of Things (IoT) solutions provider, Elements Technology Platforms Limited, as it developed a new headquarters. With predictions suggesting that by 2020 the number of internet-of-things (IoT) devices will rise to 20.4 billion worldwide[1], this growing reputation is vital to the future of the UK and the Sheffield City Region economy, and it is crucial that investment vehicles such as NPIF continue to fund early-stage businesses in this sector.
NPIF’s work with the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) is also a factor in our success. The entrepreneurial spirit across the region has been strengthened by the appointment of James Muir as the Chair of the LEP at the start of the year. He brings with him a passion for the region, combined with a wealth of experience in working with high-growth businesses across the world. The LEP has been working closely with NPIF to continue to encourage economic growth, create new jobs and promote the Sheffield City Region on the global stage.
Together, with private sector leverage and support from the LEP, the funding from NPIF is helping to drive the region to achieve its ambition of drastically improving its economic prosperity.
We invite high-growth businesses that are looking to access funding and grow, to seek advice through the Sheffield City Region Growth Hub, which offers a dedicated ‘Access to Finance’ service, to support ambitious SMEs with their growth plans.
To contact the Sheffield City Region Growth Hub and to receive further information about Access to Finance visit: https://www.scrgrowthhub.co.uk/ or call 03330 00 00 39.
Neil MacDonald, NPIF Strategic Oversight Board Member and Board Member of the Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership.
The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.
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