News: SYIF leaves legacy for South Yorkshire

More than 9,100 jobs have been created and safeguarded in this region over the last decade due to the support provided by South Yorkshire Investment Fund (SYIF) in Rotherham.

The venture capital and loan fund is coming to an end after nine years of investments in South Yorkshire businesses, with the new region-wide Finance Yorkshire now taking on responsibility for making money available to companies.

Since being launched in 2001, SYIF has made a real impact on the economy in South Yorkshire, supporting a wide range of sectors, from manufacturing to creative and digital, environmental to health.

£60million including money with management has been invested into businesses to help them meet the funding gap for growth and development.

More than 2,500 businesses have received assistance from SYIF – a thousand more than the target set at the outset – helping to create and safeguard 9,132 jobs.

Tony Goulbourn, chief executive of South Yorkshire Investment Fund, said: "Even though the first Fund has come to an end, we will continue to manage a number of investments made during the last few years which require on-going support to ensure maximum returns are provided.

"Due to the sustainable nature of the Fund we are expecting to see a legacy of approximately £20m by 2013 for this region."

Other key partnerships have enabled SYIF to maintain a wide spectrum of financial packages for businesses. However, the most important is SYIF’s relationship with Government Office for the Region (Objective 1 Executive), Yorkshire Forward and Business Link Yorkshire.

Tony added: "All our partners have been incredibly supportive and became the catalyst for economic development, business support and investment readiness, making the region more attractive to small business clients, other investors as well as businesses looking to move to the region.

"Following the recent launch of Finance Yorkshire, it is important that our existing clients and the small and medium businesses in South Yorkshire are provided with a seamless and continuous flow of finance from the Fund."

SYIF has supported many Rotherham comapnies including Hydra Mining, PMS Diecasting Limited, Develop-U, Rocksure Systems, Inertius Ltd, AtraNova, Connect-IP, Biovision Medical and Wright Printing Services Ltd.


Finance Yorkshire website

Images: SYIF