Welcome to Beer & Partners Funding Site

The Budget, bad news as it was generally, did provide a very clear signal that this Government is intending to encourage support for new business entrepreneurs and investment generally and specifically through Entrepreneurs Relief and retention of EIS, whilst cutting the waste of £2bn on Regional Development Agencies and £190m on Business Link.

The expectation that Business Link and investment readiness programs are going to be wound down, has had mixed reactions. In our view, Business Link other than its excellent web site, was never fit for purpose anyway with a lottery of receiving help from excellent or very poor advisors.  Investment Readiness Programs had become a revenue stream for consultants where attendees attained an NVQ level training rather than anything which prepared them for the rigors of running a business. We believe quite strongly that all necessary information is out there on the web and the business link site and any entrepreneur who has not got the drive to do the research themselves and create a commercial business plan themselves probably hasn’t got the skills to be an entrepreneur in the first place and should not expect investment.

What does this mean for investors? For a start the reduction in RDA investments and the lack of capacity in the SIPP funds and VCT’s expected over the next year or so will create a shortage of capital for new businesses that can only be funded by Business Angels. More choice, better and more realistic valuations and a growing reality check that only the best will get funded should ensure that only serious prospects get off the ground. However, larger size investments may be required driving more syndication by investors pooling their resources and the need for some form of incentive from government to bring new business angels to the arena or provide matched funding to make sure that they go off sufficiently funded to achieve their aim is essential. Our concern is that reduced funding for R&D projects will result in many great opportunities for innovation and technology will fall by the wayside in the future.

In our last stop press we promoted the idea  of doing away with some of the substantial overhead of the RDA and use just a fraction of the £2bn a year spent by them by providing matched funding of say 20% alongside business angel investors, backing deals negotiated and judged viable by business angels who are investing their own money. Could this be extended and inverted to encourage investment into R&D projects by an 80% matched funding? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

We welcome two recent additions to our team of associates in the South East - Anthony Fry and Chris Scott and are delighted that Steve Johnson has rejoined us in Southampton after a sojourn in the property world. All three add substantial skills and qualities to our team of associates across the UK and we are delighted to have them on board.

We will shortly be announcing several new associates in North Wales, Manchester and Cheshire areas and London and continue to recruit particularly in the Birmingham & West Midlands, Reading, Milton Keynes, Sheffield and Scotland. Hopefully we will hear from some of the ex Business Link operatives who are keen to change to a strictly commercial environment but if you do know of anyone for whom our activities would be of interest to please do let them know we are recruiting.

Michael Weaver, Beer & Partners Limited