British Business Bank launches the First Tranche of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund

The Midlands

Author Morwen (Abigail Brady)

Licence Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Source Wikipedia

Jane Lambert

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund ("MEIF") is a joint initiative between the government owned British Business Bank and a number of local enterprise partnerships ("LEPs") in the East and West Midlands. The participating LEPs from the East Midlands are the Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (D2N2) Greater Lincolnshire, Leicester and Leicestershire, and South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnerships. The Bank hopes to make £250 million available to small and medium enterprises ("SME") in the Midlands Engine area through debt finance, small business loans, proof of concept and equity finance funds in amounts ranging from £25,000 to £2 million.

Today the Bank announced the launch of its £150 million debt finance funding scheme which is the first tranche of the £250 million (see the British Business Bank's press release British Business Bank launches first £120 tranche of Midlands Engine Investment Fund 29 Aug 2017). Also today, the Bank published Spotlight: The Midlands Engine Investment Fund which surveys the Midlands Engine area economic and funding landscape.

Anyone seeking any kind of funding under the MEIF or any other scheme will be expected to have planned, protected and leveraged its investment in branding, design, technology and creative output and that's where I come in. If you don't already have an IP strategy give me a call on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.

I can help you identify your intellectual assets and suggest the best ways of protecting them having regard to your business objectives and available resources. If you already have a patent or trade mark attorney, solicitor or other professional advisers I can work with them. If not, I can put you in touch with some of my contacts and help you choose and instruct the ones you like best. I can incidentally also put you in touch with many other professionals such as product design consultants and IP insurers and introduce you to your nearest Business and IP Centre or Patent Information Unit where you can get more advice and assistance either free of charge or at a very modest cost.

For more information on the Midlands Engine, visit my Midlands Engine resource page.