00:00Well, good morning. We're here at the County Hotel in Newcastle. The funding for Great
00:15Breakfast has ended in partnership with the British Business Bank's Northern Powerhouse
00:21Investment Funders. We've got a great line-up of speakers and we're really looking forward
00:25to it and a packed audience as well. Businesses are looking for funding for their businesses
00:30and to grow and scale. So welcome to us.
00:33So I'm with David Broome of B7 Marketing Agency. Tell us a little bit about the business, David,
00:39and why you are here. Tell us about your funding.
00:43So B7 is a marketing agency. We leverage storytelling techniques, primarily through video, to help
00:48organisations to better communicate why they exist and where they help.
00:53From a funding perspective, we weren't necessarily on the lookout for any assistance. It was
00:59one of the key people in our network who had said, actually, you're going to want to go
01:04far quicker if you access a little bit of funding. And what that's enabled us to do
01:08is spearhead our growth across the UK and also into the US. It's also allowed us to
01:13employ three new members to the team and to bring in a hell of a lot of equipment to allow
01:18us to leverage video through storytelling techniques to be able to market better.
01:23Hi. So, Simon, we just had the event. I think it was very good. Why was it so important
01:31to get some of the messages out to the audience today?
01:34Ultimately, we've got the funds, so Northern Powers Investment Fund too. We've got fund
01:39managers in place across the region. They're looking for opportunities for businesses.
01:44They're looking to grow for them to invest into. So this event is really useful to tie
01:50into some of the local businesses, to tie into the intermediary networks, the advisors,
01:55the businesses' core providers who are at the base to host the link, who have links
02:01into businesses, have clients who that they will know have been looking for investment
02:06so they can refer into our fund managers. So that's the benefit of this event. In an
02:09event like it, we can raise awareness and hopefully find some opportunity.
02:14And the fund's had some great successes already, and a couple of businesses that spoke today
02:19have received funding. Great to showcase some of them today.
02:23Yeah, really, really good to hear from the business today. A really different picture
02:28all the way from Powerall, cutting-edge solar technology, B7, a brand agency, and the way
02:37he was talking with the scars on his back from earlier funding rounds, managed to access
02:42funding through our fund manager, NEL, in the region, and turbocharges growth, essentially.
02:48So yeah, really good to hear from businesses who do access funding. Great.
02:52So Susan, you've just spoken on the panel. Did you enjoy it? And what did you get out
02:57of the event as a whole?
02:59I thought it was a really good event. It was my first experience of being part of a panel.
03:04I thought the mix of speakers was absolutely spot on. It was quite interesting to see some
03:09of the mix in the room as well from the audience, and particularly the first-timers. But hopefully,
03:15it was an opportunity to get the message out there that, you know, we've got these funds
03:19in the region. We're looking for businesses who are on that road trip. I mean, we're not
03:24scary people. We just want to understand what they're trying to achieve and hopefully be
03:28able to support them in that journey.
03:31And NEL, local business, looking at local businesses, and that's who you're wanting
03:36to invest in, and some really good success stories that you can tell us about.
03:41Yeah, we're a really good, we're a really well-established team. NEL's been around since
03:471989, so, you know, we've got a ton of experience, as I said. And we're a friendly bunch. You
03:53know, we know that it can be quite daunting, but I think it's important to mention that,
03:58you know, we're a local investment bank, we're local fund managers, and we're making decisions
04:02at a local level for businesses in the region.
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