Starting & Running a Business All-in-One For Dummies, 4th Edition (UK)

Chapter 1

Finding the Money

IN THIS CHAPTER

Working out how much outside money you need

Looking at the different types of money available to you

Choosing the best source of money for you

Finding money to work with

Businesses need a continuous flow of customers, products or services to sell, and space to work from or store unsold goods. But they need money to make all these things happen. The more the business actually does, the more money it needs.

Even at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, small businesses needed, and, despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, were able to access, money. On Small Business Finance Markets 2020/21, the British Business Bank summed up the position neatly: ‘SME [small to medium-sized enterprises] lending surged to a record level in 2020. Gross bank lending (excluding overdrafts) to SMEs was £103.7 billion, 82 percent higher than in 2019’. The report went on to note: ‘Equity investment values also reached record levels in 2020, up 9 percent on 2019. Furthermore, the number of deals was up 5 percent’. You can keep up to date on these statistics at ...