Startup Support in...Ipswich

by Startacus Admin

Ipswich and Suffolk based early stage startups and entrepreneurs take note - here's the lowdown on key startup support and help available where you are...

Away from the established startup hubs like London, the support for setting up a startup across the UK isn’t always so clear. It’s not a lack of support, just a quieter ecosystem that takes a little more work to unearth. We want to help with this by highlighting what some cities, which might not spring immediately to mind at the mention of ‘startups’, have to offer.

After our stop off looking at the startup support in Norwich, we’re headed down the road a bit to the riverside town of Ipswich.

Co-Working space

Nwes offers Ipswich co-working space with flexible tenancy from its Suffolk Enterprise Centre, located within the historic Felaw Maltings. On-site car parking, business advisor, 24-hour access, café, and 8 hours a month of conference and meeting facilities all included.

The University of Suffolk hosts Waterfront Studios, a creative industries hub offering affordable studio and desk space to start-ups, SMEs, artists, graduates, and alumni. It is a space to work, meet, collaborate, network and grow.

Rural Enterprise East is situated just outside Ipswich, if more countrified surroundings are more your thing, and offers hot desking and dedicated desks. With free tea and coffee, on-site restaurant, free parking, library, as well as events, workshops, incubator and accelerator programmes, and more, it is well worth the £126 per month for a year’s tenancy.

Regus can usually be relied upon to have co-working space almost anywhere you need it, and Ipswich is no different. Located in Ransomes Europark, this space offers hot desking and dedicated desks, offices for teams of any size, an informal business lounge, and more on a range of flexible plans.

Finances

Because it is so close to Norwich, most of the same financial support options in that article are open to startups in Ipswich too.

The Anglia Capital Group is a group of angel investors looking to invest in innovative, disruptive startups and early growth-stage businesses in both Norfolk and Suffolk.

Startup Norfolk look to make seed level investments in Norfolk based startups as well as aiming to provide marketing strategy to set them up to succeed.

Businesses in the East of England Energy Zone (EEEZ), have access to a few incentives and grants, including the Growing Business Fund of up to £500,000 for expanding businesses that will create new jobs, and the Small Grant Scheme of £1,000-£25,000 for micro- to medium-sized businesses.

The New Anglia LEP has a grant of up to £25,000 for small business growth in the form of 20-30% contribution.

MENTA (mentioned below) has partnered with Transmit Start-Ups to deliver the Start Up Loans scheme. Start Up Loans is a government backed scheme, providing repayable loans and mentoring to individuals in the UK with a viable business idea but no access to finance.

The startup ecosystem and programmes

MENTA offers free business startup workshops, and can afterwards continue their support through business mentoring and help with business space and funding.

Online marketing is an obvious necessity for any business, and the Suffolk Internet Marketing Specialists monthly meetup in Ipswich could be a good place to keep up with developments, get new ideas, and network.

TechEast has an aim to grow the tech economy in the East of England and put it on the map through networking, accelerating, putting on events, and boosting jobs.

The Things Network Suffolk is an open-source network supporting IoT innovation with an aim of building the Suffolk network to facilitate tech invention.

Norwich had SyncNorwich and Ipswich has SyncIpswich, Ipswich’s tech and startup community. They exist to promote and enable local tech business growth, and make Ipswich a thriving tech cluster.

Part of the university’s Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre, the Suffolk Centre for Female Entrepreneurship was set up to support female entrepreneurs and innovators - particularly graduates - through events, a speaker series, networking opportunities, and signposting to funding and business growth advice.

Ipswich & Suffolk Small Business Association is run by business owners for business owners. It is non profit to support you by way of connecting you with other like minded business owners through the website, newsletters, full directory, annual exhibition, and lively and successful networking events.

The Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneurs Start Up Programme is for social enterprise, charity, and impact projects that provides a free learning programme (14 learning days, spread over a year), a grant of £1,000, a support network, and mentoring.

As always, this is far from an exhaustive list and is here to help get you started, so feel free to let us know at editorial@startacus.net if you think there is a particularly deserving entity in any of these categories.

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Published on: 23rd March 2019