Scottish Enterprise has increased the availability of later stage equity investment to support Scottish businesses to meet their growth and export ambitions through the Scottish-European Growth Co-Investment Programme (SEGCP).
Kerry Sharp, Director of the Scottish Investment Bank, tells us about this innovative programme which is aimed at increasing the available funding options for companies who are at the next stage in their growth journey.
At Scottish Enterprise, we look at ways to help the economy to grow. A key part of this is considering initiatives to build on Scotland’s business support ecosystem and how we can help companies with their grow ambitions.
As part of Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Investment Bank aims to support companies with raising the appropriate funds at the right time to support growth. One of our roles is to monitor the Scottish risk capital market, gaps in availability and challenges for companies in accessing this type of finance – and develop potential solutions to support. To date, most support has been targeted at the early stage risk capital market, an area where we’ve seen the most significant financing gaps for high growth companies.
We are very aware that there are on-going and new challenges to secure Scotland’s economic prosperity and we need to increase the available funding options for companies who are at the next stage in their growth journey and ready to scale. The Scottish-European Growth Co-Investment Programme (SEGCP) is aimed at delivering exactly that – investment of scale from experienced investors who bring more than just deep pockets.
Utilising funding secured under Scottish Government’s Scottish Growth Scheme, this initiative is an innovative way to leverage funding from the European Investment Fund (EIF) whilst also accessing their Fund Manager relationships. This partnership has created a programme of £200 million+; a £50 million commitment from Scottish Enterprise and £50 million from the EIF to be used to leverage at least £100 million from EIF backed Fund Managers into Scottish SMEs to support their scaling journey.
We know that securing the right type of finance at the right time requires the efforts and co-ordination of a number of players, from the companies themselves and their advisors, to existing investors and funders, alongside support from Scottish Enterprise.
Under this Programme, we will work with those interested companies to maximise their potential to successfully raise scale up capital by preparing them for engaging with later stage investors, providing advice and support in identifying appropriate and relevant investors, preparing investment ‘teasers’ outlining the investment proposition, and accessing masterclasses to be able to present a compelling pitch to investors.
Many Scottish companies are successfully achieving significant growth through existing public sector mechanisms, but we’re keen to increase this number and achieve more economic growth. As well as the additional direct positive economic impacts this funding will create, it will further raise Scotland’s profile in the highly competitive global fundraising market.
For further information about the Scottish-European Growth
Co-investment Programme visit
www.scottish-enterprise.com/segcp
