Hallam i-Lab success at Yorkshire Financial Awards’

Sheffield Hallam’s business incubation space, The Hallam i-Lab's ScaleUp 360 project, has won Accelerator of the Year at the Yorkshire Financial Awards

The Hallam i-Lab's ScaleUp 360 project is a Sheffield City Region wide programme designed to provide the inspirational advice and support that businesses and entrepreneurs need to sustainably scale their ventures.

Key features of the project include specialised business advice supporting entrepreneurs and start-ups, bespoke coaching support to help businesses capitalise on opportunities and address challenges, access to workshops delivered by specialist advisors, access to start-up and incubation facilities to help grow and expand business networks at the Hallam i-Lab and a unique provision to support clearly defined technical design challenges to maximise product potential.

Andrew Finney, ScaleUp 360 project manager, said “It is fantastic to win this award and a testament to the amazing work the ScaleUp 360 consortium has done to support hundreds of businesses to make real strides to grow, diversify and innovate.

“The Hallam i-Lab, a dynamic co-working business incubation space which serves both the university’s entrepreneurial community as well as those based across the region, has provided even more opportunities for clients, mentors and trainers to network and build professional relationships with the view to further collaboration.”

The ScaleUp 360 project is delivered by an expert partnership led by Sheffield Hallam University, with The Business Village @ BarnsleyBIC and East Midlands Chamber.

The Judges' comments about the project were: “The winner is targeting young entrepreneurs, aiming to build a much-needed pipeline of startups. Crucially, this accelerator is providing a powerful package to budding entrepreneurs, including an impressive mentoring programme that serves as an excellent platform from which to build and grow their businesses.”

The Yorkshire Financial Awards celebrate the achievements and successes of the region’s best and brightest within the financial services industry.

ScaleUp 360 is part-financed by the England European Regional Development Fund receiving up to £1,868,028 as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2023.