Capital grants

Your business will meet our baseline criteria if you have:

• From 3 to 249 employees
• A trading address in Cambridgeshire & Peterborough
• A balance sheet less than €43m (~£38m)
• An annual turnover less then €50m (~£44m)
• Ambition to grow faster or to continue scaling rapidly (~20% year-on-year)*

Additionally, for capital grants at this level (and pro-rata for grants above this amount), applicants must be able to demonstrate how the grant will enable the creation of at least 3 new jobs in the subsequent year.

There are some other specific requirements that only apply to a small minority of businesses. These are described in the more detailed guidance and will be discussed with you by your dedicated Growth Adviser.

*We understand that you may have some variances due to COVID, and will consider this when we receive your registration of interest and get started with Growth Works.

There may be specific capital projects you have in mind that will support your business to grow and expand, and your dedicated Growth Adviser will be able to support you in confirming eligibility. To help you, here are a few examples of capital investments which could qualify for our grants:

• Outright purchase of capital equipment, such as new machinery/updating of production lines
• Commercial vehicles clearly branded and classified as such, including vans, delivery motor bikes
• IT hardware / infrastructure such as computers, laptops and printers
• New extensions and building work for commercial purposes
• Software is eligible but only where the business buys a package or a licence that last for at least 12 months. (monthly or quarterly packages/subscriptions are not eligible)

Here are a few examples of ineligible expenditure:

• Hire Purchase, Lease Purchase or any type of Credit Sale
• Revenue expenses, such as salaries and consultancy fees
• Activities of a political or exclusively religious nature
• Expenditure financed from other central or local government sources or from European Community Funds
• Depreciation, amortisation or impairment of fixed assets
• Input VAT recoverable by the funding recipient from H.M. Revenue and Customs
• Payments made before the announcement of approval in principle
• Interest payments or service charge payments for finance leases
• Statutory fines and penalties
• Entertainment costs
• Monthly/annual software subscriptions

Growth Works can contribute from £20,000 to £150,000 of grant funding, on a 50% match funding basis. This means that the grant will cover 50% of the cost that you would incur for new capital investment projects.

For example, for a single growth project, you might want to implement e-commerce functionality to your website because it will accelerate your growth and subsequent new jobs. Your best quote is £14,000 to implement this work, and so the grant will be for £7,000.

As another example, you might want to employ an expert to develop a more effective sales and marketing strategy, and have some development coaching for your leadership team. Your best quote for the marketing strategy is £10,000 and your development coaching quote is £20,000.  You can apply for a grant of £15,000.

If you also wanted to buy a high quality 3D printer or other equipment to enable you to produce prototypes for your prospects to close sales quicker, the cost of that might be £5000.  So in this scenario, the total growth project expenditure would be £35,000.  Because the printer cost is less than 30% of the total, it is also eligible, and you would receive a grant of £17,500 to support your investment.

The process is really straightforward. First step is to register your interest with us at Growth Works so we can double check you’re eligibility. This is a short online form on our website, that you can complete here: Get Started

You’ll get an immediate confirmation that we have received your registration and within 2-3 working days, our team will contact you to confirm your eligibility and all the other fully funded support that is available to you.

You’ll then meet with one of our Growth Advisers, who will talk you through the grant application process and simple form that requests information about your:

• Business
• Annual turnover
• Details of the project that you will spend the money
• Quotations for the planned expenditure planned
• Cash flow documents
• Your forecast of how this will result in growth for your business (i.e. turnover and jobs)

We’ll also run you through critical due diligence documents and checks we will perform, including full credit checks, Know Your Customer and anti-money laundering precautions.

Your application will be by an internal grant finance panel, which includes the Strategic Lead of Growth Coaching & Grants and Financial Controller. This panel meets weekly, and applications we have approved in principle will then be sent to CPCA for final approval which meets monthly.

Once approved, you will receive a Grant Offer Letter to sign and the Funding Terms, which, together with your application form and this guidance, forms your agreement with us.

You can then proceed to procure and make your investment.

All applications will be assessed in line with criteria outlined above. However, applications that fall into the following categories will be prioritised:

• Companies with double digit employee numbers
• Profitable businesses with positive balance sheets/NTAs
• Are already growing or have demonstrable high growth potential
• Operating in one of CPCA’s key sectors

Once your grant project is completed, you need to submit evidence of compliant procurement and payment of all items comprising your grant, together with the Grant Claim Form, and submit it for review.

We will also require you to send us an email subsequently confirming that you have recruited the number of new staff that you forecast in your grant application. You are also required to report whether any indirect jobs have been created as a result, by asking your supplier(s) to let you know if they also created a new job as a result of your grant project.

Once you receive your official Grant Offer Letter, you can now go and purchase the assets you need to make it all happen.

When it’s all complete and you have paid them, just present the evidence of payment as outlined above, and we’ll get this paid as per your Grant Offer Letter.

Grants will be made direct to your bank account. Normal review and payment processing timescales will be the end of the month for claims submitted by 5th of the month. We reserve the right to visit your premises to check evidence of what the grant has been spent on, or ask for photographic evidence.