South West Investment Fund passes £2 million investment milestone

The £200 million South West Investment Fund has passed the £2 million investment milestone having completed £2.4 million of debt and equity investments in businesses across the region.

The government-backed fund was launched in July by the British Business Bank to boost the supply of finance to small and medium-sized businesses throughout the South West.

The fund has completed a range of debt funding deals from £26,000 up to £500,000, making a total of over £2.4 million invested by the fund in South West businesses to date.

Among the businesses to benefit from investment are Screenology, creative film making programme based in Bristol, and landscaping start-up Viridis Landscapes in Bath.

Screenology (main pic) offers applicants the chance to study towards a practical filmmaking degree, was set up in 2015 with just 14 students on the books. Within just four years, that number had reached 140.

But then the pandemic struck. Screenology was hit hard and founder Tom Brereton Downs needed to find a way to develop his programme.

He applied for a £95,000 loan through fund manager SWIG Finance to allow Screenology to launch a new course – an MA in Creative Practice.

The new course launches in January and will create three new jobs at Screenology, which has a team of 19.

Jemma Smallman started Viridis Landscapes Ltd in Bath back in June 2020.

After successfully growing her landscaping start-up, rising material costs, bouts of bad weather and the day-to-day work involved with running a business meant Jemma had to take stock of where she was heading.

Jemma knew she had to recruit an extra pair of hands. She applied for a loan from the South West Investment Fund through the appointed fund manager SWIG Finance, which enabled her to take on a full-time project manager.

Nathan King now looks after the site work, leaving experienced landscaper Jemma to get on with what she does best – creating and maintaining beautiful gardens. She can also devote the time she needs to looking after the financial and administrative side of things.

The South West Investment Fund covers the entire South West region and provides loans from £25,000 to £2 million and equity investment up to £5 million to help a range of small and medium sized businesses to start up, scale up or stay ahead.

Ken Cooper, managing director, Venture Solutions, at the British Business Bank, said: “Within weeks of launching the South West Investment Fund our appointed fund managers had received hundreds of enquiries from businesses across the region, so we’re delighted to see these first investments coming through and supporting businesses that might otherwise not receive investment.”

The South West Investment Fund is managed by a team of four fund managers that have been appointed by the British Business Bank. They are SWIG Finance, FW Capital, Maven and the FSE Group.

Many of the fund’s initial investments have come from the smaller loans part of the fund (£25,000 to £100,000), which is managed by SWIG Finance across the region.

John Peters, managing director of SWIG Finance, said: “I’m really pleased with the positive impact the fund is already having. We’re continuing to experience high demand and want to support as many viable small businesses as we can, from all corners and communities in our region.”