It's been a busy couple of months here at Bubble HQ...we've just launched our brand new Fairtrade and natural liquid soap range - a world first - and we're right in the middle of Fairtrade Fortnight!
Having successfully 'bootstrapped' these last few months, rather helped by winning two business awards with cash prizes and some support from our bank, we're now on a serious funding mission....
Why?
We had some great news last week...verbal confirmation that one of the supermarkets wants to launch our products later this year! This should have been a moment of huge celebration - and it was for about half an hour - until I started to think about the practicalities. Hmmm. A 12 week lead time AND proforma terms for some of our materials + long payment terms expected by supermarket = CASHFLOW NIGHTMARE!
So...time to get the business plan updated, and resume our quest for EFG funding. Here's our progress so far...
Bank 1 - on the positive, they're very willing to consider it. But here's the catch....
Bank - what security can you offer?
Me - ummm - none sadly - which is why i'd like to apply under the EFG scheme
Bank - we can do that, which will cover 75% of the loan, but we need the loan to be 100% secured, so what about the other 25%?
Me - but isn't the scheme meant to be for people like me - a great business but no security?
Bank - we might be able to accept a personal guarantee without tangible security as long as the amount is less than £25,000
How very interesting. As it happens, the 25% will be less than £25,000 so there's still hope. But since the EFG scheme covers very large loans too, anyone who can't offer 25% security will be excluded. Is that really what the government intended? I think not!
Bank 2 - business plan exec summary submitted...let's see what happens there
I'm also going to be looking at business angel finance - through Angels Den and other sources too.
Watch this space for an update!
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