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Start Up Loans celebrates £2m in loans to small businesses in Pembrokeshire

Press release 22 October 2024

The Start Up Loans programme, part of the British Business Bank, today announces that it has delivered £2m of funding to small businesses in Pembrokeshire since the programme launched.

The £2m in Start Up Loans has been delivered to a total of 204 small businesses with an average loan value of £9,721.

Across Wales, Start Up Loans has provided over £50m worth of funding to small businesses in Wales, equating to over 4,750 loans.

This £50 million milestone is an important one for businesses right across Wales.

We know that access to finance has become a significant problem for many small businesses, which is why we’re committed to working with the British Business Bank to support SMEs as much as possible, wherever they are in the country.

- Gareth Thomas Small Business and Exports Minister

The British Business Bank Start Up Loans programme provides government backed loans of up to £25,000 per individual, up to a maximum of £100,000 per business. In addition to finance, successful applicants may receive free mentoring, access to resources and advice.

Start Up Loans helps Pembrokeshire business take root

Pembrokeshire-based Green Up Farm was recently supported with an £8,000 Start Up Loan to help couple Toni and Alex Borella develop their micro greens business.

Turning their back on their life in London, Toni and Alex escaped to rural Pembrokeshire in 2021 to pursue their sustainable dream of growing nutritious, miniature superfood from farm to fork.

Today Green Up Farm grows plant varieties including sunflowers, rose radish and pea shoot tendril and micro herbs.

Toni said: “It's been a long but exciting journey to get to where we are now. We are very lucky that the British Business Bank really believed in what we do and understood our vision – as a start-up business that can be very difficult and very rare.

“We’re investing the loan into the tooling of the final product which we hope to launch very soon. We then hope to expand and distribute across Wales and over the bridge into England, which would require more staff. We’re also planning on looking into using passive solar greenhouses to harness the sun’s energy.”

See below for a full breakdown of loans to the top 10 local authorities in Wales since 2012, including amount lent, volume and average amount.

Top entrepreneurial local authorities in Wales:

Local AuthorityAmount Lent (£)Loans MadeAverage Loan Amount (£)
Swansea5876,116,40810,420
Cardiff5645,830,97310,339
Newport3163,191,61510,100
Carmarthenshire2973,184,03510,721
Caerphilly3003,026,28510,088
Neath Port Talbot2702,737,35210,138
Rhondda Cynon Taf2772,712,5979,793
Vale of Glamorgan2112,438,75711,558
Bridgend2282,145,5299,410
Pembrokeshire2092,022,4849,677

Start Up Loans is proud to have provided more than £50m worth of funding to business owners across Wales since 2012. Reaching this significant milestone of delivering £2m in loans to small businesses in Pembrokeshire is something we’re really pleased to have achieved.

We hope that aspiring business owners in Pembrokeshire are inspired by the stories of successful businesses that have launched with the support of a Start Up Loan and get in touch with us at the start of their own business journey.

- Louise McCoy Commercial Managing Director, Small Business Lending at the British Business Bank

To support smaller businesses, Start Up Loans has recently releases an Essential Guide to Starting a Business, containing advice for first time business owners to help them get started.

Further Information

If you are a journalist and have a media enquiry, please contact [email protected].

Notes to editors

About Start Up Loans

The Start Up Loans programme is operated by The Start-Up Loans Company, a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales, registration number 08117656, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ.

The Start-Up Loans Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc.

British Business Bank plc is a development bank wholly government-owned by DBT and 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.

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 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 115,000 loans, providing more than £1.13bn of funding.
  • In the financial year 2023/24, the scheme provided 9,759 loans with a total value of approximately £
  • The economic benefits of the Start Up Loans programme are almost six (5.7) times its economic costs.
  • 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).

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.

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