GM Business Growth Hub has been confirmed as a Prolific North Partner, with the collaboration focused on supporting Greater Manchester’s digital, creative and technology ecosystem.
Part of The Growth Company, GM Business Growth Hub is Greater Manchester’s business support organisation, delivering fully funded support to companies across the city-region.
The partnership will focus particularly on the Hub’s Digital, Creative and Technology arm, which works with businesses across one of Greater Manchester’s priority growth sectors.
The team supports companies at different stages of growth, from start-ups and early-stage founders through to more established businesses seeking investment, international expansion or scale-up support.
Janine Smith, GM Business Growth Hub Director, said: “GM Business Growth Hub is Greater Manchester’s business support organisation. Over the last 15 years, we have delivered fully funded business support for businesses of any size, in any sector, so long as they are based in Greater Manchester.
“That can be from funding to innovation, people, sales and sustainability. Within that, we have sector teams with sector knowledge, and one of those teams is the Digital, Creative and Technology team. That is the focus of this partnership with Prolific North.”
The Hub’s wider scale-up support includes Spark to Scale, Ascend and International Scale Up, alongside a new Digital, Creative and Technology cohort programme, designed to help ambitious creative businesses accelerate growth and expand into international markets.
Janine added: “We can be light-touch or we can be really involved. Because we’re publicly funded, we do not ask anything in return from the businesses. Our goal is to make Greater Manchester a Great Place to Do Business”
The partnership comes at a key moment for Greater Manchester’s creative, digital and tech sectors, with the city-region identifying DCT as one of its priority areas alongside sectors such as advanced manufacturing, health and life sciences and financial and professional services.
Jo Li, Head of Business Marketing at GM Business Growth Hub, said the partnership would help the Hub reach more businesses in a sector that often needs a different kind of engagement.
“We can’t support every business on our own or do everything ourselves. We need to rely on different partnerships to outreach to more businesses,” he said. “We’re focused on driving business growth and doing everything we can to support that. Our priority is to help businesses succeed and thrive within their local area.”
“That is why we want to create partnerships like this one, because it is something where we can outreach to more businesses and make sure they can get the support they need.”
Greater Manchester is widely recognised as one of the UK’s leading hubs for digital, creative and technology businesses, but companies in the sector continue to face challenges around funding, growth, talent, investment readiness and market positioning.
Colin Brew, Head of Partnerships at GM Business Growth Hub, said the partnership would also help explain the role of the Hub to businesses that may have heard of it but not fully understood what support is available.
“Due to the wide range of services on offer at GMBGH it’s vital that we raise awareness to the specific elements of support available to the business community.,” he said. “This partnership provides a great opportunity for us to work with Prolific North to provide a better understanding of who we are and what we do.”
The partnership follows a major focus on engaging Greater Manchester’s creative industries. Earlier this year, GM Business Growth Hub collaborated with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority on the Greater Manchester Creative Industries Exchange, bringing together more than 600 freelancers, organisations, educators and industry leaders for a day of discussion, networking and collaboration.
Speaking at the event, Sarah Novotny, Head of Sector Delivery at GM Business Growth Hub, said: “When we talk about creativity in Greater Manchester, it’s quite obvious on the surface what that means. We’re home to amazing artists, musicians, academics and change makers. Our cultural creative heritage is world leading.
“But what this event was about is looking beneath that and understanding the infrastructure that exists here to fuel that success. It’s built on decades of hard work and support from across the city-region. Only by understanding this, we can accelerate growth even further.”
Janine says the partnership with Prolific North reflects a more strategic push to communicate with creative, digital and tech businesses in a way that better reflects the sector.
“We are putting a huge amount of effort into communicating with that sector,” she said. “As part of this partnership, I think it signals how important this sector is.”
The partnership will also see GM Business Growth Hub involved in Prolific North’s Creative Powerhouse and Graft regional champions activity, alongside further editorial features exploring the work of the Digital, Creative and Technology team in more detail.
