Startup Support in...Newcastle
by Startacus Admin
Newcastle and North-East Engand based startups take note - here's the lowdown on the startup support and help available where you are...
Away from the established startup hubs like London, the support for setting up a business 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. From our article on startup support in Glasgow, and startup support in Edinburgh we’re leaving Scotland and looking to the North East of England...
Co-working spaces
Newcastle has become more of a startup hub in recent years, and has established some pretty good co-working spaces in the city. Here are just a handful:
Campus North is a co-working space for tech startups and freelancers. As well as meeting rooms and classrooms for hire, Campus North offers hot desks (for free!), open-plan co-working, and individual offices.
Toffee Factory has been refurbished as workspace for digital and creative startups and established companies, from shared workspace to larger offices for businesses with multiple employees. The location also has a 70-seater event space for hire.
The Beacon’s co-working space in the Portal is a great space for startups and small businesses and freelancers looking for a temporary base. Packages start from only £80 per month for 24-hour access, staff kitchen, and business address (also a desk).
Regus has four locations in the Newcastle area. From Sunderland, to Gateshead, to the Quayside, and Cloth Market, there is a range of location to choose from, and prices start at £3.50 per day for a 24-month agreement.
Finances
Newcastle University offers STARTUP Founderships, which are educational grants providing 6 months of funding and intensive support. Founderships provide a £7,500 stipend for individuals or £11,250 for teams, with access to grant funding. The scheme does not require any equity from the startups.
The North East Growth Hub has a page dedicated to helping you find grants and funding, from government funding to angel investors to various loans. Filter by funding type, category, and amount to find just the kind you need. This is a pretty good place to start.
The North East is home to Gabriel Investors, an angel investor group of just under a dozen investors, proven by their own successful businesses. They provide equity investments or loans from £10,000 to £150,000 to small and early stage businesses looking to grow.
Northstar Ventures is one of the UK’s leading early stage investors. They look for strong teams with strong ideas that will drive growth and become scalable businesses. They are also investing the £10.2m North East Social Investment Fund, a unique fund providing impact investments to charities and social enterprises in the region.
The startup ecosystem and programmes
Newcastle is home to the inaugural programme of Ignite’s accelerator, founded in 2011. As we highlighted recently, Ignite is returning to Newcastle to launch a 3-month pre-accelerator - with a £10k convertible loan investment - and a 6-month remote accelerator - with a further £25k investment. Applications for the pre-accelerator were due on 7 September 2018, but keep an eye on when the programme hopefully returns again soon.
The Newcastle Startup Week is a 5-day (& night) festival that inspires & helps hundreds of people to start or grow their 
business in the North East of England. These days are broken up into: Inspiration Day, Getting Started, Funding & Finance, Growing & Scaling, and Keep Going or Pivot. Newcastle Startup Week will next be taking place in 13-17 May 2019. Leading on from that, the organisers also previously ran the Newcastle Scaleup Summit - and at some point down the line, you might expect that to return too.
The Digital Leaders North East programme is looking to be the focal point of engagement and networking for entrepreneurs and businesses in the digital sector across the North East. They host regular events on a range of subjects around the digital and technological, which are great ways to keep up to date and to build a network.
Digital Union aims to build, represent, and lead the North East digital sector and is the largest collective of creative digital businesses in the region, enabling collaboration, business support, mentoring, business development opportunities, marketing assistance, and more.
As always, this is def not an exhaustive list, so feel free to let us know at editorial@startacus.net if you think there is a particularly deserving omission in any of these categories.
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Published on: 9th September 2018
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