eScalate

Our three-year business support programme, eScalate, is now live and offering support to:

• SOCIAL ENTERPRISES* who would like support to develop new business models, higher-quality products, processes, services or specific products to boost productivity or resource efficiency.
• SME SCALE-UPS who are looking to increase market share, increase revenues, increase staff and add value to your business. If you have struggled with access to finance and investment readiness support, we can help.

Socially minded enterprises exist in the space between traditional charities and mainstream businesses. These purposeful businesses are committed to enabling positive social and environmental impact. Scale ups are growing businesses that are ready or are preparing to pitch to investors, looking to grow their workforce, launch new products or diversify.

These enterprises can be found in many sectors, such as:

• Creative industries
• Tourism and leisure 
• Finance 
• Health and social care
• Education

Supporting social enterprises 

We are working with OSEP (Oxfordshire Social Enterprise Partnership) to support Oxfordshire's social enterprises through six social enterprise Hubs. They help social entrepreneurs, charities and purposeful businesses to gain knowledge, forge partnerships and increase their social and environmental impact.

The social enterprise hubs launched in February 2020 and are listed below:

View all of our eScalate and OxLEP Business events 

- for the foreseeable future, we are looking to move future OxLEP-led events to 'digital platforms

Grants of between £1,000 and £25,000 are also available for eligible SMEs. 

Download our flyer for social enterprises

Supporting growing businesses

The eScalate programme supports growing businesses that have scale-up potential. If your business is working towards increasing market share, revenues, staff or has struggled with access to finance or needs investment readiness support, we can help through 12 hours of 1:1 support (via telephone or videophone) including:

• Access to finance advice and guidance
• Market/competitor analysis focusing on becoming investment ready
• Identifying suitable types of investment
• Business Planning for finance
• Signposting clients to networks
• Investment readiness support including pitch practice coaching

Grants of between £1,000 and £25,000 are also available for eligible SMEs to fund the following activities:

• Investment readiness consultancy support
• Access to finance consultancy support

Download our flyer for growing businesses

To find out more about the eScalate programme and how we might be able to support your business, please email business@oxfordshirelep.com

Not eligible? Enterprises which cannot be supported through eScalate may benefit from business support services outside of the project, contact our team to find out more: business@oxfordshirelep.com

* The eScalate programme supports SMEs that are Social Enterprises, social entrepreneurs, enterprising charities and other purposeful businesses committed to enabling positive social and environmental impact.