London’s brilliant entrepreneurs create jobs, innovate and anchor local communities.
To achieve our growth ambitions, we need to back our businesses to raise finance, win new customers, hire and train great talent, use new technologies, develop their leadership skills, reduce their carbon footprint and energy bills, and grow internationally.
Find out how we can better support London’s businesses and entrepreneurs in the long term.
Why it matters
There are around a half a million active small businesses in London.
We will take a new approach to helping them to grow, bringing together a coalition to provide the strategic, coordinated support that London’s entrepreneurs deserve.
We will tackle some of the long-term problems which are holding too many small businesses back – starting with access to finance. And we will work to tackle the deep inequalities faced by specific groups of entrepreneurs including women, people from minoritised backgrounds and disabled people[92].
10-year plan
- Coordinate a pan-London business support offer with a coalition of partners to:
- Increase small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) productivity.
- Scale businesses in the growth sectors.
- Systematically increase access to finance.
- Close the entrepreneurship gap.
- Support community and social economy businesses.
- Help businesses to take climate action.
- Make London’s public sector an accelerator of innovation.
- Open up the supply chains of London’s anchor organisations to smaller and diverse-led businesses.
- Make London the springboard to global growth for innovative companies across the UK.
Getting started: one-year actions
- Create an evidence-based Business Support Strategy.
- Launch a new London Tech and Inclusive Growth Fund to provide loan and equity funding for high-growth SMEs.
- Support scaleups in London and nationally to expand into international markets.
- Explore a large-scale intervention on SME finance.
- Accelerate the work to make it easier for SMEs to win contracts from London’s public sector organisations.
- Set a City Innovation Strategy.
- Invest in a new quantum tech incubator.
Learn more about the key actions
Inclusive talent strategy
Explore our plan to unlock the potential of London’s skilled workforce and drive the economy.
Local places
Learn how London will create more local places where businesses can grow and support their communities.
Housing and infrastructure
Understand London’s priorities for building new homes and infrastructure to boost growth.
Investment and promotion
Find out how we will win more investment in growth and build London’s global reputation.
Sources:
92. British Business Bank (2020), Alone Together: Entrepreneurship and diversity in the UK, October 2020.