The first edition of Creative UK’s North East Investment Bootcamp has officially begun. Earlier this week, this intensive, six-month support scheme kicked off with a launch event held at Gateshead’s Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art welcoming each of the 16 creative businesses taking part in 2023’s inaugural cohort.
The Investment Bootcamp has been developed as part of the North East Create Growth Programme, which is funded by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) and delivered by Creative UK in collaboration with lead partners the North of Tyne Combined Authority (NTCA), and aims to support creative businesses in planning for growth and exploring and securing commercial investment opportunities.
Open exclusively to North East businesses, the Investment Bootcamp is designed to change the way founders think about growth. Inviting them to focus their attention on long-term strategy and building a robust and sustainable plan for scale, it will help participants prepare for investment and long-term success.
Over the next six months, Creative UK will pair creatives with industry mentors who will be on hand to offer them one-on-one advice with their own specific creative journey in mind. It will also bring them face-to-face with investors via exclusive roundtable events, allowing entrepreneurs to connect on their own terms in relaxed and informal environments and to forge relationships and potential new creative partnerships.
Charlotte Bond, Head of Programmes at Creative UK, explains: “We’re so glad that so many exciting creative businesses can join us on this journey for our very first North East Investment Bootcamp. In a nutshell, the Bootcamp hopes to instil a ‘reflect and review’ attitude in its cohort. This sounds like a relatively simple and easy thing to do but in practice, it’s actually quite hard to apply and focusing on personal growth can often be the first thing to fall by the wayside.
“Preparing for investment really requires you to take a hard look at your business, reflect on what you’ve done, where you want to go and why – that’s the gap that the Bootcamp aims to fill. It’s all about giving founders a structure and a sounding board to sense-check their plans and their proposition with experienced people that know the industry and know investment.”
Following on from their first group session held on Monday, 17 July, founders will now embark on their own bespoke investment journey over the next six months. It’s one that will allow them to benefit from group peer sessions and solidify their own unique growth plan. Find out more and meet the cohort here.