LCE Fund a "great option" for small businesses seeking finance

Coventry and Warwickshire Reinvestment Trust, through funding from Warwickshire County Council, has lent £383,700 to a variety of businesses within Warwickshire from the Local Communities and Enterprise Fund (LCE), part of the  County Council’s Warwickshire Recovery & Investment Fund. Among businesses to have benefited is Leamington-based software and technology provider CAE Tech...

 

 “LCE is a great option for businesses that might not be able to access finances through banks.”

 

The business...

CAE Tech, an innovative Leamington-based software and technology provider, has proven ability to mass customise designs for manufacturing and give customers the freedom of choice while allowing the manufacturer to use efficient production processes. With their solutions, design to manufacturing becomes a seamless process. Mass-customisation is a key trend in manufacturing, driven by demands of consumers for choice, and by sustainability factors - by enabling “build-to-order” processes, their solutions can reduce waste and allow multiple manufacturing locations to be closer to the consumer. Thus, bringing the manufacturing sector one step closer to Net Zero.

Why did you choose the Local Community and Enterprise Fund (LCE)?

As an SME, our finance needs combined cash flow, capital expenditure and investment in growth. Our experience with banks is that these mixed needs are not considered, luckily CWRT has a more considerate and holistic approach. The Local Community and Enterprise Fund was the perfect solution for our situation and is helping us to expand our existing projects and put our growth plans into practice.

How did it help you?

LCE is allowing us to start developing new industrial hardware. New improvements have added value to the current clients, increased clients' trust, and helped us secure future projects. The new equipment has helped us to define a clear path to our objectives, to bridge the gap between design and manufacturing and to make mass customisation achievable and accessible.

Conclusion

LCE is a great option for businesses that might not be able to access finance through banks. You shouldn’t shy away from LCE just because of the interest rates as it can help your business expand immensely. If you lack security, CWRT might be able to offer the Recovery Loan Scheme alongside LCE to help you secure finance.

* To apply for the LCE Fund, please call CWRT on 02476 551777 or enquire at https://www.cwrt.uk.com/applylce The LCE runs in parallel with the £90 million Business Investment Growth pillar of the Warwickshire Recovery and Investment Fund (WRIF) which offers debt finance to medium and larger businesses. For more information, please visit www.warwickshire.gov.uk/wrif