A programme to support Liverpool City Region (LCR) creative and digital businesses has boosted jobs, funding and valuable insight for the sector, according to a new report.
The LCR Activate Summative Assessment analyses the impact of the LCR Activate programme, which launched in 2017 to help SMEs grow, develop new concepts and drive innovation.
Led by Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), the programme has been open to the city region鈥檚 small and medium sized digital and creative businesses looking to 鈥渂enefit from academic/sector-specific expertise in innovating new products and services, as well as access additional funding鈥.
The three-year initiative has been running in partnership with Liverpool鈥檚 Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) and the LCR Local Enterprise Partnership, while being part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
According to the report: 鈥淭he programme has been successful in creating new jobs and generating GVA in the region, with an estimated 70 gross jobs and 拢2.653m in gross GVA, as determined through the beneficiary survey.鈥
Other key findings suggest that 93 per cent of surveyed participating companies who joined the programme as they looked to design and commercialise new products were successful in their objective, while numerous businesses receiving support from LCR Activate have seen increased revenues and improved profit margins.
With access to finances having been recognised as a problem for start-up companies in the city region, LCR Activate has also awarded more than 拢800,000 of grant funding to companies to match early stage investors鈥 money on a '拢1 for 拢1' basis during the programme.
Meanwhile, knowledge and understanding of the city region鈥檚 creative and digital sector which has been gained through LCR Activate is expected to continue to benefit the industry into the future and also inform how future support programmes could work.
Jonathon Clark, project manager for LCR Activate, said: 鈥淲e have worked with early stage businesses who have joined our programme to solve problems they have encountered, using concepts and methodologies such as product-market fit, lean startup, human-centred design and agile development.
鈥淥ur approach is underpinned by the knowledge that the main reasons businesses fail almost always come back to issues related to products, people and finances 鈥 and that it can be hard to see this straight away when things aren鈥檛 going right in your company.
鈥淲e have provided practical hands-on support on technical and commercial topics for founders on our programme, but have also continuously stressed the importance of getting good mentors and investing in developing yourself as a leader; 鈥榥ot just giving a man a fish, but teaching him how to fish鈥 as the old proverb goes.鈥
Reflecting on the programme, which also hosted a number of events during the three years, he added: 鈥淲e have a lot of case studies on and in our 鈥楾ech Climbers鈥 campaign that show how directors who invest the time to develop solid fundamentals reap the rewards later on in the business lifecycle.
鈥淢any of these companies are now approaching big milestones in terms of how much revenue they鈥檙e generating, how many staff they鈥檙e hiring and what portion of their market they have secured. I am very confident that it is these same companies who are only a team of four or five now, that will be employing hundreds of people in the coming years.鈥
For more information about LCR Activate .
