Invest NI’s “Access to Finance” strategy

The NI Small Business Loan Fund (NISBLF) is part of Invest NI’s “Access to Finance” strategy. The strategy comprises of two equity funds and two debt funds one of which is the NI Small Business Loan Fund. Phase one of NISBLF launched in February 2013 and approved loans to the value of £8.3m to over 400 businesses in the following five years who could not access or had already exhausted their mainstream finance facilities. The fund was successfully delivered by the partnership of Ulster Community Finance Ltd and Enterprise NI Ltd (ENI)

This partnership has again been successful and was awarded NISBLF II in June 2018. This successor fund can now lend up to £100k to existing businesses and up to £15k for start-ups. Funding can be provided for a range of purposes including Working Capital, Asset Purchases, Growth Finance, Start-Up Costs, Match Funding etc.

Ulster Community Finance Ltd

Ulster Community Finance Ltd, was set up to support the management of funds for companies seeking to support the SME and Not for Profit Sector. The team behind Ulster Community Finance Ltd specialise in loan solutions and in the management of funds for varying partners.

We were very pleased to be able to help a significant number of small businesses in our management of the first £5 milllion, NI Small Business Loan Fund. The success of which saw us mandated to manage a second NI Small Business Loan Fund II.

The NI Small Business Loan Fund II is currently being managed by our team – and we are delighted to continue to support new loan applications. An additional £5.5 million has been made available to private SMEs or Not for Profits to start, grow or leverage their business ideas and many in Northern Ireland are finding the funds of real benefit to support their ideas.

If you would like more information about our credit support facilities or fund management team simply contact us at: [email protected]

We have a 48 hour SLA response to this email so your query will be picked up very quicky.

Contact Ulster Community Finance Ltd

Enterprise Northern Ireland Ltd (ENI)

Since we were established in 2000 to represent the 28 Local Enterprise Agencies, Enterprise Northern Ireland have worked with thousands of entrepreneurs, helping them set up their business in Northern Ireland, and enabling them to grow and develop. ENI currently delivers a suite of programmes assisting clients at a number of levels, pre-start (non trading or ideas generation), start-up (ready to start and early stage) and for growing companies. These programmes are supported by the financing options for start-ups trading less than two years (Start-Up Loans) and the NI Small Business Loan Fund. Along with the delivery of business support services and finance, the LEA network in their business parks provide a cost effective solution for the incubation and growth of many business making them essentially a one stop shop for SME’s.