V-Viz realises its vision with Micro Enterprise Grant

After a decade of increasing success as a supplier and developer of inline machine vision inspection systems, Offchurch-based  V-Viz arrived in 2014 with a problem.

The order-book was full and the customer-base expanding but that meant the company was seriously outgrowing its premises at Bunkers Hill, off Welsh Road. The business was booming - but becoming very cramped.  It was becoming a victim of its own success.

But a £23,967 Micro Enterprise Grant changed everything.

The grant was accessed from the Rural Development Programme for England, a seven-year programme (2007–2013) funded jointly by the EU, through the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the UK Government.

The grant, accessed through Warwickshire's Rural Growth Network, enabled V-Viz to expand its premises to match the expansion of its workload.

Thanks in large part to the grant, which created three jobs and safeguarded eight, V-Viz has recently been rebranded to InterVision Global Ltd: a new name more appropriate to a company with customers well beyond the UK and which has just opened an office in the United States, at Boston.

Finance manager Angela Walter says that the Micro Enterprise Grant was critical to the company's continued growth.

"We had seriously outgrown the premises as they were," Angela said. "There are two elements to our business - the project side and our on-line website through which we sell components - and it reached the stage where it was critical that we expanded and improved the office space, creating a dedicated technical space and stock room.

"As a small business we did not have the cash-flow to invest in the necessary work, but with the grant we were able to expand to give us the room we need both to house stock and to give our engineers the room they need to work in."

Find out more about similar grant funding available for small rural businesses in Warwickshire by clicking here