Business and management consultancy services

Tender description

As part of the Inverness and Highland City-Region Deal, the Northern Innovation Hub (NIH) is led by HIE. It has been developed as a series of tightly focused initiatives to strengthen opportunities for young people, to accelerate the growth of ambitious, nascent enterprises and enhance competitiveness in the City-Region. The NIH is designed to benefit small and emerging businesses and social enterprises who plan to trade nationally or internationally. A key project within the NIH that is the subject of this PIN is the 30 under 30 business acceleration programme for high-growth start-ups. The aim of 30 under 30 is to ensure the City-Region is an increasingly attractive place to start and grow a successful enterprise. By providing the support entrepreneurs need to establish successful businesses and social enterprises, this project will help those start-ups with high growth potential (over 200 000 turnover growth in 3 years) to overcome risks and challenges faced at an early stage. It will encourage young people who have ambitious business ideas to remain in the City-Region or move their enterprise here, making an important contribution to the economy. It will improve the perception of the Highlands as a good place to start a business and as an inclusive centre for entrepreneurship and innovation. The intention with 30 under 30 is to establish a largely virtual acceleration model in the region, with some physical components. We expect that much of the support and assistance provided to entrepreneurs will be delivered using digital technologies, but there should also be opportunities to meet face-to-face and forge networks. This will overcome the challenges of distance and the requirement to undertake extensive travel to further develop and commercialise their business ideas, whilst making the most of the benefits of the cohort approach. The target market for this support is young, entrepreneurial, ambitious leaders seeking to establish or grow a business in the City-Region. They could already be involved with a start-up enterprise with high growth potential or looking to create spin-outs or start-ups from academia, or alternative institutions, by commercialising a product or project. The intention is that 30 under 30 will provide the intensive and longer-term support necessary to assist a nascent business to flourish, by supporting participants over the course of up to a year. The intention is for the programme to be open to all sectors, with the focus being on growth potential.