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One in three UK business owners want to grow their businesses but are unsure how

Press release 19 September 2018

  • Polling finds older business owners significantly less likely to be aware of alternative finance options than millennials
  • Over half of business owners expect to increase their income/turnover in the next financial year

Polling commissioned by British Business Bank, the UK government-owned economic development bank, has revealed one in three (33%) smaller business owners want to grow their businesses but are unsure on how best to achieve that growth.

Often, smaller businesses want to grow but just don’t consider, or know of, the alternative finance options available to them. The new polling reveals, for example, that only 5% of businesses have considered angel investment whilst only 7% have considered crowdfunding.

Older business owners are significantly less likely to be aware of or to have used alternative growth finance options than their younger counterparts. One in five (19%) millennials (under-35s), for example, have considered crowdfunding, compared to fewer than one in twenty (3%) over-35s.

Business confidence is high amongst those surveyed, with more than half (51%) of business owners surveyed saying they expect to increase their income/turnover in the next financial year, with fewer than one in ten (8%) expecting their income/turnover to decrease.

The British Business Bank is committed to helping smaller business leaders understand and explore the full range of finance options available to them. That’s why the Bank has launched the Finance Hub – a new interactive website dedicated to providing independent information on finance options for scale-up, high growth and potential high growth businesses.

Getting investment for your business does not have to be as scary as going into the Dragons’ Den. There are plenty of ways to get finance and access support – the challenge is knowing where to look, making the time to find out about them and getting investor ready. Piers Linney Non-Executive Director at British Business Bank
The financial landscape can be complex and confusing for smaller businesses trying to finance their growth ambitions. Today’s polling shows that too often smaller businesses want to grow but don’t know where to start meaning they miss out on growth opportunities. Our Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information about the finance options for high-growth smaller businesses. Its Finance Finder tool helps these small, high-growth businesses understand their finance choices and identify the right finance for them to grow and succeed. Keith Morgan CEO of British Business Bank

Populus interviewed 505 directors and owners at small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in England, aged 18 or over online between 29 August and 2 September 2018. Populus is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules; for more information https://yonderconsulting.com/ (formerly Populus).

Further Information

Notes to editors

About the British Business Bank

The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

The British Business Bank is currently supporting almost £5.2bn of finance to nearly 75,000 smaller businesses (as at end of FY 2017/18).

As well as increasing both supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of the finance options available to smaller businesses:

  • The new British Business Bank Finance Hub provides everything high-growth businesses need to know about their finance options, including short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success. The new site also features case studies and learnings from real businesses to guide them through the process of applying for growth finance.

As the holding company of the group operating under the trading name of British Business Bank, British Business Bank plc is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government which is not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The British Business Bank operates under its own brand name through a number of subsidiaries, one of which is authorised and regulated by the FCA.

British Business Bank plc and its principal operating subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. A complete legal structure chart for British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries can be found on the British Business Bank plc website.

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