Garages to Global Project Launch

January 9th 2013

Dear All,

I´m writing to tell you about developments at DigitalCity Business, and to announce the launch of our new ERDF 2012-15 project. As you may already have heard, we won a £2m fund to drive the development of the digital and creative sectors in the Tees Valley and the North East further forward: the money´s come from ERDF, all the Tees Valley councils, Teesside University and Barnard Castle Vision, and represents a real endorsement of the excellent progress DigitalCity has made over the past few years.

Over the past few months we´ve quietly been preparing, and now we´re ready to launch DigitalCity´s Garages to Global initiative.

We´ve developed our range of support products and services even further, and added a whole set of new ones to the mix. So alongside familiar support like the Business Growth Workshop System, Coaching and Mentoring surgeries, and the interim Sales Director scheme, there are new ones like the interim Finance Director, online Networking for Collaboration, the Film Business Bootcamp, and Traction Control for companies accelerating towards investment finance.

What we´ve got is a unique and uniquely effective range of support: it´s helped Middlesbrough go to fourth in the high-growth potential league for England (out of four hundred areas) from plumb bottom five years ago; and has driven deals worth over £5m for DigitalCity companies in the past nine months alone, bringing in private-sector finance from North East funds, angels and foreign private sector investors - making the Tees Valley a real hotspot for the digital investment community.

But it´s not just about companies winning investment. DigitalCity´s there for every digital and creative business - whatever it does, whatever stage it’s at, whatever ambition it has. It’s as much there for the single person setting up in their spare room as it is for the high growth companies that are increasingly choosing to set up in the Tees Valley. That´s why it´s called Garages to Global.