Early stage and growing ventures last night shared £255,000 in the latest round of funding awards from business accelerator Entrepreneurial Spark.

Run in partnership with Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Ulster Bank, KPMG and EMC, the Entrepreneuring Awards took place in eight of the business accelerator’s nine Hatchery locations across the UK.

Each of the start-ups were in with a chance of securing up to £10,000 to help propel their business growth.

Winners included Helena Hills, founder of Truestart Coffee, the only coffee in the world designed specifically for sports performance; Dianne Teo, founder of international fitness company Fatburn Extreme and Melanie Lawson founder of Bare Biology, the UK’s Leading Premium Omega 3 Fish Oil Specialists.

Entrepreneurial Spark co-founder and chief entrepreneuring officer Lucy-Rose Walker (pictured) said that with three new hatcheries opening in August the next round of awards will take place across 12 locations with a prize fund of almost £350,000.  

Gordon Merrylees, head of entrepreneurship, RBS & NatWest, said: “Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the UK economy and the wealth creators, so it’s really important we give them the right support, access to appropriate expertise knowledge and networks. The standard of all these award winners shows just how impressive UK’s enormous entrepreneurial talent is.”  

Ben McDonald, partner, KPMG Enterprise, commented: “Seeing how far each of the Chiclets has come since embarking on their Entrepreneurial Spark journey is actually rather humbling.”

To date entrepreneurs following the business accelerator programme have raised over £45 million in investment, secured an accumulative turnover of £85m and created 1,816 jobs, showcasing the impact Entrepreneurial Spark has on the business community and UK economy. Around 88% of the companies the business accelerator has worked with are still trading today, a figure far above the industry norm.

With Hatcheries in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayrshire, Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton, Belfast, Leeds and Manchester, the start-ups are given one-to-one expert enablement alongside access to mentors, key partners, free office facilities and a host of training workshops and events.

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