Financing your Business

Incubators have active relations with the finance community so that they can generate the best opportunities for their clients. They work closely with public and private sources of loan and venture funding, keeping abreast of the changing market place. This helps them to work with you so that your company becomes 'investment ready' and attractive to potential funders.

Incubation staff will be aware of the availability of any available publicly funded grants and loans, for example, for product development, and can help you with the application process. Finally, the provision of start-up finance by the incubator itself may be part of the deal when the process begins.

Do you need more funds to help you develop your idea and get your product into the market?

There are two sources of money:

• Your own
• Someone else's

Using someone else's money to develop your idea, or your business, may be an ideal solution. Unfortunately, this ideal solution is not easy to achieve.

If you have insufficient funds of your own, then relatives or friends may be willing to help out.

Failing this, loans or equity based investment is the only real way forward.

Organisations and individuals that offer money for new ventures invariably need to be able to recoup all or most of their money if the venture is not successful. A philosophy which you would subscribe to if it was your money that was being loaned or invested.

A fully researched and well written Business Plan may attract funding through loans or equity based investment. However, anyone offering funding is investing in you as much as your business plan.

Also, no matter how good your business idea may be, your ability to attract funding will be significantly improved if you have a patent stating that your company owns the idea.

There are various potential options where you can seek Equity Finance, Debt Finance or Grant Funding which are discussed in more detail in this section.