Business Grow Fund (BGF)
The Business Growth Fund (BGF) focuses specifically on supporting and providing follow-on funding to successful grant recipient companies. The fund provides hybrid grant-equity funding which acts as a transition and a bridge from grant to venture capital (VC) financing. The financial assistant is a mix of two components – a grant portion and an equity portion that is similarly structured but more flexible than a VC financing.
The grant portion is to be disbursed to finance the tail end of the Technology Development Phase; while the equity portion is disbursed only upon the fulfillment of the grant milestone and upon starting of the initial phase of the business building phase.
The objectives of the fund are as follows:
- Accelerate the development of local high technology companies by providing business funding to qualified grant recipients companies.
- Provides funding for the "last mile" of the R&D&C value chain.
- Ensures that qualified grant recipients are adequately capitalised during their crucial formative years to build a business track record
- Build enough "commercial" value in the company to make companies attractive for follow-on financing by VCs & other financing institutions.
- To demonstrate that grant recipients which have received strong market validation for their products/services are further supported to become full-fledged commercial enterprises.
