North West video games industry expected to benefit from £185m fund
Andy Leach, CEO for NW Business Finance, has told The Drum that he expects the video gaming sector to be one of the industries that will benefit from the £185m North West Fund.
The fund, set to launch in September, is currently accepting submissions for investment from developing companies within the North West across three sectors: environmental, biomedical and creative.
The creative sector will receive £15m of the fund to invest in its development. The rest of the fund will be split between Development Capital, Business Loan and Venture Capital.
AXM Venture Capital has been tasked with overseeing the distribution of that £15m to the successful creative business candidates, which Leach has said he expects the region’s thriving video game sector to benefit.
“The video gaming sector is one of the areas in the north west which has historically done well and therefore I would expect it to be the beneficiary of a reasonable proportion of the capital that is available here, but clearly within the media sector there are lots of other areas that I am sure have also got compelling stories as well,” said Leach.
The North West Fund is one of the largest public sector funds in Europe and aims to safeguard or create around 14,000 jobs in the region and is coming from Europe, rather than the UK purse, which is why it has been unaffected by widespread public sector cutbacks.
As to why the creative sector in the north west was chosen to benefit from the fund, Leach explained that it was clearly an industry set for growth with the imminent opening of MediaCity and the companies, including the BBC, which will be based in it, as well as the growth of the video gaming sector in Merseyside.
“Those two specific areas have helped us identify it as a hot sector and one which we feel will present significant investment opportunities,” he said, hoping to create a financial business legacy within the region during a period when developing companies are finding it almost impossible to secure capital investment.
Asked which companies are likely to receive funding, Leach added that those applying will obviously need to come from the region and be a SME.
“I’m hoping that it is going to be across a wide range of businesses across a wide range of sub sectors within the digital creative industry but time will tell where the opportunities come from.
"At-the-end-of-the-day, people have to be out there with the vision, the ideas and the plans and then we can provide the capital to deliver on those. We want to create real wealth; we want to create some jobs as well as just providing capital.”
Applications for the fund are set to close at the end of August, with launch events planned in September for stakeholders and successful applicants.