INSIGHTS / News

His Royal Highness The Duke of York, KG, visits the Bristol SETsquared Centre in its new home, in Engine Shed today, Monday 10th February 2014. Also today, the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) announces that 12 businesses who are members of either the Bath or Bristol SETsquared Centres, have been awarded close to £2m of grant funding.

 

In addition to the £11.85m already awarded from the West of England Growth Fund, the £2m is a significant statement of confidence in the Hi-Tech sector, which has been prioritised by the LEP for its massive potential to deliver growth.

 

The list of awards is headed by Bristol business, Blu Wireless Technology, which has been awarded £1m for its WiGig (new generation WiFi) and 4G technology, the largest award made by the LEP fund.

 

Also in the list are Bath businesses: neighbourly (£94k), Clean Energy (£27k), Citeab (£26k), Tivarri , Envolve Technologies (£132k) and CloudFind (£90k).

 

Simon Bond, Centre Director of Bath SETsquared said: ”I’m delighted that our companies have benefitted from this investment by the West of England Growth Fund – the grants will now leverage additional multi-million pound private investments into these companies.”   

 

Members of the Bristol SETsquared Centre in receipt of awards are Blue Speck Financial (£220k), AptCore (£80k), Nanoscope Services (£40k), SecondSync (£100k) and Digital TV Labs (£233k) to which Nick Sturge, Bristol SETsquared Director said: “Bristol and Bath has some fantastic tech businesses – in software, internet technology, electronics, semiconductor, biotech and across all sorts of sectors. These awards will make a massive impact into jobs growth here – and SETsquared has a track record of businesses growing steadily without failing, so these are high-value, sustainable jobs.”

 

Paul Wilson, chief executive of the West of England LEP, says: “Through this fund we have already invested around £14m, which has attracted more than £41 million of private sector investment into the local economy, creating or safeguarding over 1,500 jobs. High tech is a significant area of growth for us – we already compete internationally and our region is nurturing a future generation of high tech businesses.”