Start up Loans, the £112 million Government-backed scheme created to help young people to start their own business, has now supported its 1000th young entrepreneur.
In the first 5 weeks of 2013 500 business have been backed, this follows an extension of the scheme which nows offers loans to entrepreneurs aged up to 30 years old.
Prime Minster, David Cameron said:
This clearly demonstrates the ambition and drive people in this country have to create a business and I am pleased that Start-Up Loans are helping more and more entrepreneurs who start small but think big transform their ideas into viable, growing businesses.
The initiative was created to give young people a boost to get their businesses off the ground.
According to Start up Loans, applications have also more than doubled in the last month, from 3000 to over 8,300 in January. The initiative is Chaired by former Dragons’ Den star and Tech City News columnist James Caan, and he was bullish about the latest developments:
The fact these young people are creating employment brings me enormous satisfaction. If each of the businesses we start creates two or three jobs that will be a hundred thousand jobs created by this initiative alone.
London represents 33% of successful the loans to date
Entrepreneurs have started a wide range of businesses from fashion to music, food to e-commerce and digital to fitness.
The programme is available to anyone between the age of 18 and 30 whose business is in England. Find out more details here.