Growth Hub funding helps Inspire Insurance expand

The firm has been looking to grow into new premises for over a year but had been forced to freeze its expansion plans because of the terms being offered by banks to buy its own building.

But after a call out on LinkedIn, assistance from alternative funding provider Ludgate Finance and support from the Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub, the company has now been able to move to the Cobalt Centre on the Middlemarch Business Park.

It has already seen the company grow from 12 to 16 staff and there is room for further growth at the new property but managing director Leigh Mackey said he couldn’t have done it without the Growth Hub and Ludgate.

He said: “We’d be trying to move by accessing traditional forms of finance for sometime and it was frustrating because I could see the potential for growth and it was really holding us back.

“In the end, I put a posted on LinkedIn asking what other sources of funding were out there and Richard Mason from Ludgate got in touch with me.

“He introduced us to a peer-to-peer lender called Fundingknight and, from there, everything happened very quickly.

“I was then introduced to Jeremy Moore at the Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub and that really helped us to make the move.”

Through the Growth Hub, Inspire Insurance managed to secure a £50,000 grant towards the purchase of the building through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The overall investment in the building, including purchase, fit-out and IT, has totalled more than £500,000.