A newly-launched initiative, supported by Lloyds Bank to make early-stage business support more accessible to females, has announced MedTech entrepreneur Lorna Green as board chair.
The Lifted Project is a nationwide initiative that is creating regional growth boards in five cities across the UK, in a bid to make high-growth entrepreneurship more accessible to women outside of London and the South East.
The Lifted Project was set up by Zandra Moore, Co-founder and CEO of Panintelligence, an award-winning business intelligence software based in Leeds. It was established as a result of a recommendation from a new government taskforce established to boost private investment in women-led businesses across the UK.
The project has created five Regional Growth Boards in Liverpool, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle with the aim of increasing the number of female-founded high-growth enterprises by 50% within three years. The initiative is backed and supported by Lloyds Bank and is being led by Lifted Ventures.
Lifted Ventures, co-founded by Jordan Dargue and Helen Oldham, is an early-stage investment connector, existing to increase the flow of early-stage capital to female founders, and to promote the business benefits of backing women.
Research has confirmed that there is a higher proportion of high-growth enterprises, founded by women, in the South East than elsewhere in England due to easier access to funding, connections, knowledge sharing, talent, and customer base.
Despite this, startups.co.uk – the UK’s longest serving online small business advice platform – reported on a Simply Business study that ranked Liverpool as the fourth best city to be a female entrepreneur in the UK.
Simply Business is a business insurance provider and analysed data from across its 425,000 strong customer base, covering over 1,000 different trades. The study revealed the top ten UK cities with the highest number of female-led businesses.
The Liverpool City Region growth board is set to be led by Lorna Green, CEO of LYVA Labs, an innovation consultancy and early-stage investment company supporting SMEs in the Liverpool City Region she co-founded in 2021. Lorna started her career in the NHS, before working in a variety of commercial private sector roles in MedTech companies including large multinationals and a range of SMEs with various C-level positions in SMEs. Before joining LYVA Labs Lorna was Director for Enterprise and Growth at the Health Innovation Network.
“I am delighted to be involved in this initiative, the support for entrepreneurs across Liverpool City Region has improved over the last few years, but there is much more to be done. Organisations such as LYVA Labs, Baltic Ventures and Kindred LCR, are helping to drive change” said Lorna.
“Since LYVA Labs started investing, 56% of our funds have been deployed to support female founders. This board will enable all those organisations supporting female founders to start-up and scale-up to come together around a shared mission, to affect meaningful change in Liverpool City Region.”
Supporting Lorna as vice-chair is Claire Lewis, the co-founder and CEO of Baltic Ventures, an early-stage tech accelerator and angel syndicate based in Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle. Claire began her career in finance, then went on to become the founder of a digital sustainable beauty startup which was acquired by a technology investor.
Through their leadership, the Liverpool City Region Growth Board will support female entrepreneurs using real-time data sets provided by Leeds based tech companies, PanIntelligence and The Data City. The sustainable data model will underpin regional activities, drive the strategy and accelerate momentum, while allowing for progress to be monitored.
Earlier this month, Lorna and Claire hosted their first event which brought together founders, investors and regional stakeholders to discuss the imbalance in the Liverpool City Region and how the board can harness the power of data to provide female founders with better pathways of support. Guest speakers, Liz Ashall-Payne, CEO of ORCHA, and Sam Westgate, ex-CEO of Perfectus Biomed, shared their founder stories.
The event will centre around how to support better access to capital, networks, advice and acceleration, as well as building a community of like-minded entrepreneurs and role models to catalyse and support female founder growth. Confirmed members of the Regional Board will feature as guest speakers, including Liz Ashall-Payne, CEO of ORCHA, Sam Perona, ex-CEO of Perfectus Biomed and Natalie Kenny, CEO of Biograd who will share their founder stories.
“Lloyds Bank is committed to supporting and championing women entrepreneurs and helping them thrive in their business journey. We’re proud to be working with The Lifted Project in establishing the Regional Growth Boards. We look forward to playing our part to support and increase the flow of capital for high growth women-led enterprises within Liverpool”, said Eleanor Baker, Inclusive Business at Lloyds Bank
Also confirmed as part of the Liverpool City Region board is Helen Heap, CEO of Seebohm Hill Ltd; Carmel Booth, Partner, Calderstones Consulting; Jessica Jackson, Investment Manager at Praetura Ventures; Dr. Aileen Jones, Executive Director Investment and Delivery, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority; Emma Nolan, Head of Enterprise, University of Liverpool; Raina Heverin Founder & MD at ReCulture; and Katie Nicholson, Director, LCR Angel Network. Further members will be appointed following the event.
For more information about The Lifted Project, visit www.theliftedproject.co.uk