Celebrating 20 years of empowering businesses

3 Apr

Business finance provider Let’s Do Business Finance is delighted to be celebrating a fantastic milestone - 20 years of dedicated service in providing startup and growth loans to businesses across the South East and East of England. As they raise their glasses to toast this incredible journey, celebrating the lending of over *£52 million**, Managing Director Sean Dennis, takes a moment to reflect on the significant impact LDBF has had on the business community.*

Let’s Do Business Finance was founded two decades ago with a visionary mission: to empower businesses with the financial support they need to flourish and thrive. Since its inception, it has demonstrated unwavering commitment to fostering economic growth in the South East and East of England, helping over 6000 businesses to access over £52 Million pounds. By offering tailored financial solutions, LDBF has become a pillar of support for startups and small enterprises, transforming countless dreams into successful ventures.

What made you want to create Let's Do Business Finance?

“Really it was about helping businesses to access finance. Myself and Graham (Let’s Do Business Groups Chief Executive Graham Marley) both come from banking backgrounds, and we were seeing old clients come into the office saying my bank won’t help me anymore, a result of the start of the computer says no decision-making process by a lot of the high street and mainstream lenders. We had the opportunity to access some funding to set up our own finance company, which we thought sounded extremely interesting, so we did it!”

What was your vision for what you thought it would achieve?

“Originally it was quite small scale. Initially it really was just about helping businesses across East Sussex to access some or sufficient funds that they couldn't raise from mainstream routes and to complement our other business services offer. I guess the aim to begin with was to test the water, see what the demand was and see if we could develop and grow it and how it would add value to the other services that we provided, then take it from there.”

Getting Start-Ups Off the blocks

Starting a business is a daunting task, and securing financing can often be the biggest hurdle. Mainstream lenders are often reluctant to lend to new businesses, with their lack of track record and assets, but as a business support partner of the Start Up Loans Company (Part of the British Business Bank) LDBF has been able to be instrumental in kick-starting numerous startups, offering them the capital infusion needed to turn their ideas into reality. Their startup loans have nurtured innovation and fueled economic growth by supporting fresh, groundbreaking concepts across various industries.

Has there been a particular memorable startup business you have lent to?

“Yeah, I guess the one that always springs to mind immediately is one that was very local to us. The Source BMX. They are a couple of brilliant guys that set this business up and we've been involved almost since the outset. They came to us in the fairly early days when they were looking for new premises, and we've been involved with them in one shape or form ever since. We were able to provide them a range of funding over several years, much of which was to help their working capital as they developed and grew and we're still very much involved in supporting them, even in these days where they're now an international company trading in America, across Europe and the UK. They had great vision to set that up, develop and grow it, and now have Europe's largest subterranean skatepark. They are also very much like us, they're very focused on the impact of what they do. They employ a lot of the local young kids who might otherwise struggle to get employment elsewhere, and focus on helping them get experience in retail, and get qualifications.”

How do you think things have changed in business lending over the last 20 years?

“Gosh, an awful lot! When we started our focus was very much on Start Up loans. The Start Up Loan Company didn't exist at that point and for the majority of businesses that were coming through the front door tended to be start ups or early stage businesses saying I can't get any funding elsewhere. There's been a number of iterations of our business over the last 20 years. We still focus very heavily on the startup end of the market, but now we do that with the support and through The Start Up Loan Company. Being a regional business support partner is a really important part of our business and something we're really proud of.

Particularly over the past four or five years, we've seen an increasing demand for businesses that are more established, often much larger and are growing. When we started, our average loan might be £4,000 or £5,000, We're now looking at £80,000- £90,000 and we lend up to £150,000. There's been a big transformation within mainstream lending that has centralized a lot of the funding support.

A lot of traditional mainstream funders don't provide local support now, which is where our relationship approach I think really chimes with a lot of businesses because we can physically meet with the business, we can go to their premises and learn and understand about them, which traditional lenders often can't do now. That personal touch is a really important and something that businesses value and no longer get. I think the automation of decision making by mainstream providers, and them becoming more remote, has really helped us develop and grow our business because we've slotted into the void that they've left behind.”

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Fueling Growth and Expansion

Beyond startups, LDBF has also been a trusted partner in facilitating the growth and expansion of established businesses. Their growth loans have enabled businesses to scale operations, hire more employees, and invest in technology and infrastructure. LDBF's financial expertise has been a driving force behind the success stories of many companies in the region. As an accredited lender of Recovery Loan Scheme by the British Business Bank, Let’s Do Business Finance has also been able to support businesses as they trundled through their recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and started to look forward to achieve their ambitions for growth.

Let's Do Business Finance are an accredited delivery partner of the Recovery Loan Scheme through the British Business Bank. How important do you think the creation of that fund was to businesses in the UK?

“Absolutely vital at the time, particularly at the height of COVID along with its predecessor CBILS. They were absolutely crucial in saving many, many businesses that would otherwise have failed. The Recovery Loan scheme is there to help businesses move on from COVID and the pandemic and it's still really important. An awful lot of businesses took on, well had to take on debt to survive and because of that, a lot of them are struggling to move forward again. A lot of the more traditional lenders are perhaps a bit more risk averse and there are certain sectors that they are less keen on supporting, so we're seeing an increase in demand from businesses coming to us that are unable to raise any or often enough through them. They haven't necessarily got the security or the collateral that some of the funders might be looking for, and that's where the loan guarantee scheme steps in and helps them access funding to help them develop and grow going forward.”

What makes Let's Do Business Finance different from other mainstream lenders?

“There's a few things that make it different. The primary thing, and this is where we come from. We're what's called a community development finance institution (CDFI). Essentially what that means is that we're aiming to provide access to finance where businesses can't raise it through mainstream route, typically high street banks, but also increasingly FinTech’s. That aside we really pride ourselves on the relationship approach of what we do. It's not just a transactional arrangement. We're looking to add value, not just in terms of providing finance but supporting our clients in other ways. If they need help on marketing, for example, it's helping put them in touch with other support that may be available to help them on areas like that that can develop and grow their businesses. But overall, the key thing that we're looking at and we're really interested in supporting clients on, is the impact of what that means for the business, whether it's enables them to set up, start to grow, develop their business, taking on staff, growing employment, safeguarding jobs. All of those things are really important to us, particularly in geographical areas or for businesses that are facing financial exclusion. It’s what sets us apart from others.“

What challenges have Let’s Do Business Finance faced over the last 20 years?

“I guess the main one, there's a bit of an irony here but for us was access to finance. We need to access sufficient capital for us to then on-lend to the businesses and that always has been and perhaps always will be one of our greatest challenges, being able to access enough funding at the right price that enables us to have a sustainable, viable business model that then helps us to support the businesses in our local community. We're in we're in the wealthy southeast of England where allegedly no businesses struggle to access finance. I say that firmly with tongue in cheek because my point is often a lot of funding decisions are driven politically. We're not in the Midlands, we're not in the NorthEast, we're not in the northwest of England where, there are greater levels of deprivation, but that doesn’t mean we do not see our fair share of deprivation and financial exclusion. What that means for us is we don't necessarily get access to some of the other funding schemes that might be available in those areas. This has made it even more challenging for us to be able to access the funding that we need to develop and grow and support the many businesses we know that are unable to raising the funding they need. Despite this we have still managed to achieve growth through using our own money, and making our own investments, and we've proven that we can make it work and we have some exciting things around the corner that will help us grow this and help even more local businesses.”

How do you feel about what's been achieved?

“Really proud. I mean, we’ve achieved more than we ever would have imagined. As I said earlier, we never visualized what Let’s Do Business Finance has become, it's much bigger, it’s a lot more complex and it's a lot more impactful than we ever imagined it would be. We’re really proud of what we have done, we're helping 5-600+ businesses a year, we never would have envisioned that. It’s great and we're really excited about the future because we know we can develop and grow that even more.”

Moving on to the future, what's next for Let’s Do Business Finance?

“Well, more growth! It is a really exciting time. We've developed and grown the Start Up lending we're now the South East Region's business support partner for Start Up Loans Scheme, which we're really proud of and we're looking forward to the next couple of years to continue developing that. We are accredited for the Recovery Loan Scheme, in fact we are one of the few regionally based accredited lenders in the South East and East of England. We've developed and grown that, and we know we can develop and grow that further. Geographically, we're moving beyond our traditional areas of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Essex, we're already covering the whole of the east of England and we’re now pushing out across into Hampshire, up to Oxfordshire and increasingly into London. There will be more of that to come.”