Entrepreneurs given multi million pound lift off with launch of Startup Britain
Government and Global Brands back National Drive to inspire entrepreneurship: New national package delivers £1500 to every start-up business.
Government and Global Brands back National Drive to inspire entrepreneurship: New national package delivers £1500 to every start-up business
Over 60 leading brands have pledged millions of pounds worth of support to new entrepreneurs under a major new campaign launched by the Prime Minister today.
StartUp Britain is a ground-breaking response from the private sector to the Government’s call for an ‘enterprise-led’ recovery. It will deliver the very best in support and advice for startup companies, led by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs.
StartUp Britain will be a champion for the UK’s 270,000 businesses that start up every year aiming to help drive growth by accelerating, inspiring and celebrating Britain’s start-up talent.
It is fully supported by Prime Minister David Cameron and HM Government and has so far gathered the backing of significant international brands including Barclays, BlackBerry, Experian, Intel, Microsoft, McKinsey & Co. and Virgin Media.
Pledges to date include services and benefits comprising advertising and marketing, office space, broadband, finance and mentoring support for start-up companies.
In total Startup Britain will deliver a benefit package that represents over £1500 in value for every start-up company in Britain.
The face of the StartUp Britain campaign is a unique web portal which will point the way to some of the best resources available for business owners. It will be the first ever portal to bring together in one place the wide range of existing resources and will enable new businesses to access the package of support pledged to StartUp Britain from international brands.
The Prime Minister David Cameron said:
We won’t build the future we want to see in this country if we go back to the bad old days of big government spending, big borrowing and big debt. The recovery we need is a private sector-led recovery, a recovery with ‘Made in Britain’ stamped all over it.
We need to see a country where new businesses are starting up on every street, in every town; where entrepreneurs are everywhere.
We put out a call to business to rise up and help us drive the recovery and StartUp Britain is part of the answer to that call. That’s what’s really exciting about this. The people best placed to help business are the people who do business.
The Government today also set out a series of measures to help inspire, support and grow business startups. These include:
- working with the Peter Jones Foundation to make Tenner Tycoon grow tenfold, leading to 250,000 young people across primary, secondary and further education being loaned ten pounds to experience running a business.;
- support for every school in England to run its own business through the Enterprise Champions Programme;
- the creation of enterprise societies in every University and most Further Education Colleges to develop students with the ambition and skills for enterprise; and,
- A new online tool enabling small businesses to pitch their ideas on how they could do the business of government more cheaply or more efficiently. The best pitches will be hand picked by a community of civil servants and will receive intensive mentoring from several of Britain’s best entrepreneurs.
Oli Barrett, a founding member of StartUp Britain, said:
StartUp Britain is simple and powerful. It aims to be the biggest ever drive from the private sector to contribute to a robust economic recovery - an ‘enterprise-led recovery’, by business, for business.
Emma Jones, founding member of StartUp Britain and of Enterprise Nation, continued:
StartUp Britain will inspire people to start a business who might not otherwise have considered it. It will celebrate entrepreneurship and accelerate the growth of those start-up businesses that will in turn provide wealth, jobs and entrepreneurial legacy - which are all very much needed in the UK today.
There is a host of great information and support available to aspirant entrepreneurs and business owners. The StartUp Britain website will bring this together under one banner, providing access for every start-up business in Britain. We are now looking for additional support from the private sector in order to bolster the StartUp Britain offer.
Startup Britain has been supported by the Business Finance Taskforce and the British Bankers’ Association.
Company pledges to Startup Britain include:
- AXA will offer 10% off business insurance
- BlackBerry will offer 1,000 free Start Up Guides
- Microsoft will train 5,000 start-ups in how to use technology to drive their business and marketing activities, including free technology resources worth up to £400 per company
- Google will support start ups, initially by providing them with a limited amount of free advertising
- Regus will offer one month free businessworld membership
- O2 to offer one months free line rental
- PayPal will offer three months free fees for new accounts when signing up to a Powa.com website
- Fujitsu offers a 30-day free trial and/or 10% off the annual costs of IT storage/processing requirements via its online “Cloud” service
- McKinsey & Co will join with leading employers to launch Entrepreneur First to encourage our most innovative graduates to start up their own business
- YouGov and UCL, working with StartUp Britain and in collaboration with Imperial College London will lead the development of a pilot Start-up Summer to stimulate, encourage and support student entrepreneurs.
Startup Britain is now seeking additional pledges from the private sector, and is asking British businesses to visit http://www.startupbritain.org/ to find out more about how to pledge their support to the campaign.
StartUp Britain is the brainchild of entrepreneurs:
- Oli Barrett, Co-Sponsorship Agency
- Duncan Cheatle, The Supper Club
- Rajeeb Dey, Enternships.com
- Michael Hayman, Seven Hills
- Emma Jones, Enterprise Nation
- Lara Morgan, Company Shortcut
- Richard O’Connor, Chocolate and Love
- Jamie Murray Wells, Glasses Direct and Hearing Direct
Notes to editors:
About StartUp Britain
The key asset of StartUp Britain will be a unique web portal which will collate the very best in support and resources for start-up companies in one place.
http://www.startupbritain.org/ will be the first ever portal to bring together in one place the wide range of existing resources available to entrepreneurs. These will be complemented by a new range of resources pledged to StartUp Britain from global brands and SMEs.
The StartUp Britain website aims to raise the profile of entrepreneurship and to celebrate, inspire and accelerate enterprise in the UK.
Company supporters of StartUp Britain
- Alibaba
- AXA
- Barclays
- Bitsy
- BlackBerry
- Brightword Publishing
- Browser Creative
- Co-Sponsorship Agency
- Coutts
- Deloitte
- eBay
- eConsultancy
- Enterprise Nation
- Enternships
- Ernst & Young
- Euro RSCG
- Experian
- Fujitsu
- GlassesDirect.com
- Global Entrepreneurship Week
- Gloople
- GoResponse
- GoToMeeting
- HP
- HSBC
- Intel
- Instant Offices
- Irwin Mitchell
- King & Allen
- KPMG
- Lloyds TSB
- MADE Festival
- McKinsey
- Microsoft
- MOO.COM
- Mother
- MyKindaCrowd
- O2
- PayPal
- PayPoint
- Powa
- Powwownow
- PWC
- Reed
- Regus
- RBS
- Santander
- Seko Synergy
- Seven Hills
- Sign Up To
- Simply Business
- Standard Chartered
- Staples
- The Supper Club
- UnLtd
- Virgin Media
- Virgin Trains
- Vistaprint
60.. WorldFirst - Yell
- Yo! Sushi
Read more: StartUp Britain leaflet