Need to find funding for your small business? There’s probably a lot more out there than you think. Take a look at this list, taken from our new FREE ebook 50 Ways to Find Funding for Your Business, which details sources along with the type of funding they offer. If you want to know more, just download the ebook!
1. Accelerator Academy (Large corporates and accelerators)
2. Angels Den (Angels)
3. Arts Council (Charities)
4. Banks (Barclays, HSBC , Lloyds, Metro, NatWest, Santander
and Virgin Money)
5. Beer & Partners (Angels)
6. Borro (Asset-based funding)
7. Buzzbnk (Crowdfunding)
8. Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs)
9. Community Enterprise Funding – eg, Big Society Capital (Social enterprise)
10. Collider12 (Large corporates and accelerators)
11. Community Business Loan – eg, RBS Community Business Loan (Social enterprise)
12. Credit cards
13. Crowdcube (Crowdfunding)
14. Dragons’ Den (TV!)
15. Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme (Government)
16. Friends & Family
17. Funding Circle (Working capital)
18. Grants (Government)
19. Growth Accelerator (Government)
20. IBM Smartcamp (Large Ccorporates and accelerators)
21. Indiegogo (Crowdfunding)
22. Iwoca (Working capital)
23. Kickstarter (Crowdfunding)
24. Microsoft BizSpark (Large corporates and accelerators)
25. MITIE Millions (Large corporates and accelerators)
26. Nesta (Charities)
27. New Enterprise Allowance (Government)
28. Peoplefund.it (Crowdfunding)
29. PleaseFund.Us (Crowdfunding)
30. Retail Bond – see this explanation from the BBC (Retail Bond)
31. Seedrs (Crowdfunding)
32. Shell LiveWIRE (Large corporates and accelerators)
33. Social Enterprise UK (Social enterprise)
34. Seedcamp (Large corporates and accelerators)
35. Spacehive (Crowdfunding)
36. Springboard (Large corporates and accelerators)
37. Sponsume (Crowdfunding)
38. StartUp Loans (Government)
39. The Angel Society (Angels)
40. The Prince’s Trust (Charities)
41. The Young Foundation (Social enterprise)
42. Technology Strategy Board (Government)
43. UKTI, including Export Insight Visits & Tradeshow
Access Programme (Government)
44. Unbound (Crowdfunding)
45. Universities
46. UnLtd (Charities)
47. Wayra (Large corporates and accelerators)
48. Wonga for Business (Working capital)
49. Zopa (Working capital)
And if all else fails, try source number 50: down the back of the sofa!
Got any more suggestions? Please add them to the comments section below.
Need to know more about funding for your business?
Our FREE ebook 50 Ways to Find Funding for Your Business outlines all the different kinds of funding listed above, along with tips and advice on what they’re good for and how to get them. You can download it by clicking on the link below.
Photo Credit: William Warby via Compfight cc
The Prince’s Trust is a good one. I started out with them in 2007/98. You get mentoring as well and mine was very nice and helpful.
Arts Council is interesting. I’m hoping they can help out my local library who run an enterprise scheme for local artists such as myself.
I would say even if the funding does not help you directly, see if you can help a local organisation who you may be able to sell or promote through. Don’t wait for someone else to do it for you!