SMEs across Yorkshire and Humber are growing and creating jobs with investment from Finance Yorkshire.
The funding body’s loans fund is supporting businesses expand by investing in technology, marketing spend, new product development and the hiring of new staff.
Finance Yorkshire’s loans fund provides investments to SMEs of between £25,000 and £250,000.
Wetherby based video production and animation company Reel Film Media has received £70,000 from the loans fund. The investment is being used to increase its marketing and sales capacity including the appointment of new staff.
Reel Film will also use the investment to attract potential customers by generating new content for its website. In addition, the company has hired a content creation lead to provide a new service for clients.
Founder Adam Chandler said: “Finance Yorkshire has been great. They saw the vision we have for the business and feel more like a partner rather than just a funder. The investment will make a big difference to our marketing strategy and accelerate where we want to go with the business.”
Finance Yorkshire’s loans fund is also supporting Trustist, an award-winning customer reviews platform company based in York with high profile clients including Timpsons, Johnsons the Cleaners and Max Spielmann.
Trustist enables clients to see their online reputation in one place. It aggregates reviews from different sites which can be viewed, managed and displayed on a single dashboard.
Trustist is using its £250,000 investment to develop its own technology, marketing and hire more staff.
Founder Nigel Apperley said: “Finance Yorkshire’s investment is essential to us being able to grow the business. We are recruiting more developers who will be based in York and have plans to develop franchising as a route to growing Trustist and its reach even further.”
Finance Yorkshire chief executive Alex McWhirter said: “Our loans fund is a key route to access to finance for the region’s SMEs and is supporting exciting growth in a number of sectors particularly creative, digital and tech.
“SMEs see us as a trusted partner in their businesses as witnessed by Reel Film and Trustist who are expanding at pace and importantly creating jobs in Yorkshire and Humber. We are delighted to support them in their growth journeys.”
Finance Yorkshire’s loans fund is aimed at established or growing businesses looking for expansion finance.
To qualify for a loan, companies must be paying business rates in the Yorkshire and Humber region or wish to relocate.
The funding available is to enable businesses to invest in scaling up activities that will deliver substantial growth impact such as sales and marketing; hiring new staff; new product development; entering new markets; purchasing new equipment; and working capital.