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Liverpool businesses boosted by £10m of Start Up Loans support

Press release 23 July 2024

  • The British Business Bank’s Start Up Loans programme has delivered £10m worth of loans to businesses in Liverpool
  • The £10m is spread across 1,169 loans, with businesses receiving loans worth an average of £8,552
  • 40% of loans went to female-founded businesses

The Start Up Loans programme, part of the British Business Bank, today announces that it has provided 1,169 loans worth £10m to businesses in Liverpool, marking a significant milestone since its inception.

Of these loans, 40% went to businesses that were female founded. 16.5% of the Start Up Loans went to people from Black, Asian and Other Ethnic Minority backgrounds (not including White Minorities), totaling £2m, or 20% of the value of the funding, highlighting the Bank’s commitment to helping underrepresented groups access to finance and expertise to start a business. 185 loans also went to young people between 18-24 years old, amounting to almost £1.3m.

Recent Start Up Loan recipients in Liverpool include a business making and selling designer clothes for the Pakistani, Middle Eastern and multi-cultural market, a food court located in a large commercial premises, a veggie café and a cleaning services business.

The Start Up Loans programme has had such a positive impact in Liverpool, providing £10m to businesses in the region, and we’re proud to have supported a variety of businesses. It’s brilliant to see large portions of the funding we have provided in Liverpool has gone to underrepresented founders, with female-led businesses receiving 40% of the total. We remain dedicated to supporting businesses in regions that have historically been underserved in terms of financial support and we can’t wait to see what these businesses will go on to achieve in the future. - Delyth Edwards Senior Network Manager for the North West at the British Business Bank

Robin Valley, Liverpool-based Start Up Loan recipient

Robin Valley, a Liverpool-based sustainable jewellery brand, secured a Start Up Loan in 2023. Founded by husband-and-wife duo, Liang Zhang and Wanchong Chen, Robin Valley received a £15,000 Start Up Loan to support its transition to the wholesale distribution of its sustainable jewellery products. Robin Valley is now supplying over 60 prominent organisations including National Museums of Liverpool, London Zoo, English Heritage, National Trust Scotland and National Museum of Scotland.

A year since receiving the Start Up Loan, Robin Valley now employs 20 people, made up of full and part-time employees. It also works with local colleges, providing art students with work experience and job opportunities, in which they take home products, hand paint them, and return them to the business in exchange for payment.

When we applied for the Start Up Loan, we didn’t own property in the UK, which meant it was difficult to access the finance we needed. The Start Up Loan was our only option, and it completely changed the game for Robin Valley. It allowed us to reach our goal of distributing our products on a wholesale basis, and we were then able to reach a point where the business was breaking even.

The Start Up Loan was incredibly useful and important – it helped us to break critical financial difficulties we had to face to grow the business, and we can’t say thank you enough. The Transmit team supported us based on the fact our business had a future and we truly believe the Start Up Loans programme is the best thing that the British Business Bank offers to businesses like ours.

- Liang Zhang Co-Founder of Robin Valley

Further Information

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Notes to editors

About Start Up Loans

The Start Up Loans programme provides personal loans for business purposes of up to £25,000 at a 6% fixed interest rate per annum and offers free dedicated mentoring and support to each business.

The primary aim of the Start Up Loans programme is to ensure that viable start-ups and early-stage businesses have access to the finance and support they need in order to thrive. A network of Business Support Partner organisations supports applicants in all regions and industries throughout the UK. The Start Up Loans programme is not designed to generate a commercial profit. Capital payments together with the interest are recycled to help meet borrowers’ increasing demands for finance.

Free guides on a range of subjects related to starting a business and recent media press releases are available on the Start Up Loans website.

The funding for the Start Up Loans programme is provided by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). A development bank wholly government-owned by DBT, the British Business Bank plc is not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The British Business Bank and its subsidiary entities are not banking institutions and do not operate as such.

The British Business Bank makes finance markets for smaller businesses work better, helping the sector to prosper, to grow and to build economic activity.

Key Statistics

  • Since its inception in 2012, the Start Up Loans scheme has delivered over 105,000 loans, providing more than £1bn of funding.
  • In the financial year 2022/23, the scheme provided 9,549 loans with a total value of approximately £120m.
  • The economic benefits of the Start Up Loans programme are almost six (5.7) times its economic costs.
  • At Spending Review 2021, the Chancellor announced resources to provide 33,000 Start Up Loans over next three years.

Aside from the return-on-investment numbers these statistics are gross estimates and based on Start Up Loans CRM along with externally commissioned research undertaken by SQW Ltd, with support from BMG Research.

Since 2012, 31% of loans went to people formerly unemployed or economically inactive. 40% of loan recipients were women and 20% were from ethnic minority groups (not including white minorities).

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