Startup Support in...Norwich

by Startacus Admin

Norwich 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 business in 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 UK cities, which might not spring immediately to mind at the mention of ‘startups’, have to offer.

We’ve been to Bath and Bristol to see what their startup scene has to offer and now we’re heading east to the almost seaside city of Norwich for a look at some of what they have to offer startups.

Co-Working space

St George’s Works offers flexible membership from 1 month to 3 years for desks, private offices, and even office suites for larger startups. Meeting rooms come with a big AV screen, Apple TV, a kitchenette, and catering on request.

Business Revolution offers dedicated desks and hot desking on a number of packages, including full-time for only £100 per month. BizRev membership includes the all-important unlimited tea and coffee and free printing.

Nwes has a co-working space in Rouen House, with on-site parking, admin, a business advisor, networking events, conference facilities, and 24-hour access. You can get a quick quote for your needs on the website.

Fuel Studios is in the middle of The Lanes and gives you break out spaces, coffee areas, showers, kitchens, co-working and private office space. It’s bright, colourful, and full of collaborative spirit.

FLOCC also offers private offices as well as dedicated desks in the co-working space. It has 24-hour access, is fully serviced, and the price includes meeting rooms, collaborative areas, a quiet zone, and kitchenette. It is open to anyone, but mainly aimed at those in the creative industries.

Finances

For businesses in the East of England Energy Zone (EEEZ), there are a few incentives and grants available, 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.

As is often the case in these articles, one of the biggest and most supportive institutions is the local university; here, the University of East Anglia. The university has a list of local grants and schemes, some of which can be accessed through the university, such as the Santander ‘Try It’ and ‘Do It’ grants of £250 and £2,000 respectively.

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.

Invest East offer a free "investor led" programme to support Norfolk and Suffolk businesses to understand and prepare to raise equity and other forms of finance.

The startup ecosystem and programmes

The New Anglia Growth Hub offers businesses free advice, including access to services including grants, efficiency, mentoring and coaching and tax advice.

The Cambridge Norwich Tech Corridor aims to create over £500m of innovation-led growth, investment in infrastructure, housing & skills by 2031. They aim to create an environment where startups can thrive & grow by promoting and strengthening links between businesses in the region, and through programmes such as the Breakthrough Project.

TechVelocity is a digital/tech accelerator for the East of England, based in Norwich. They are looking for something scalable on the customer side, to accelerate their growth and structure the business to prepare it for the next level of funding. They also consider products that will have a social impact, particularly in social housing.

The Norwich Research Park is located in Centrum and the Innovation Centre, and its science and research accelerator offers office space and a high-spec lab. The accelerator give access to both on-site business mentoring and an angel network and grant signposting.

SyncNorwich is Norwich’s tech and startup community. They exist to promote and enable local tech business growth, and make Norwich a thriving tech cluster. They also run ‘Build & Launch a Startup in 54 Hours’ events, the most recent of which was in Norwich in November 2018.

Digital East Anglia host a wide range of leading edge technology meet-ups across East Angla that support and promote diversity of developers and technology, collaborating with a number of partners. 

For events happening in and around Norwich, keep an eye on the TechEast events page, which promotes and sponsors events across, as its name suggests, the East of England.

As always, this is far from an exhaustive list, 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: 9th March 2019