In The Spotlight featuring Ryan Sorby, Head of North and Scotland at Boost & Co
At Manchester Digital, we like to interview our members to find out a bit more about what they do and their work in the Greater Manchester digital and technology sphere. We're speaking with Ryan Sorby, Head of North and Scotland at Boost & Co this week.
What does your organisation do?
BOOST&Co, alongside its sister company Growth Lending, is part of the Growth Lending Group, an alternative lender that specialises in term debt and working capital solutions.
We work with innovative, fast-growth SMEs across the UK, to support their capital needs as they take the next step on their growth journey.
What do you think is currently the biggest issue facing the tech industry?
Outside of the challenges caused by the current macroeconomic environment, the UK STEM skills shortage is no secret and looking forward to the next decade, we face numerous challenges if our SME community continues to innovate, but we lack an en masse skilled workforce that can contribute towards this innovation.
Likewise, businesses need to be considering how they can leverage technology, AI and automation to support employees to be more efficient – upskilling and retraining will be an important part of creating a workforce that complements this technology, rather than one that is replaced by it.
What is your organisation’s biggest achievement?
BOOST&Co opened its first regional office in Manchester in 2018; in the past four years we have worked hard to establish the brand here, supporting brilliant companies across the North West.
It is a strategy that has encouraged regional growth across the organisation, with further offices opened in Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds and Birmingham.
The Manchester office – which is now the hub for our North and Scotland operations – hit the recent milestone of funding £120million deals; a fantastic achievement for our organisation that is testament to the calibre of SME talent in the North.
What would you consider to be your organisation’s biggest challenge?
Educating on our proposition is our biggest challenge. We find that SME owners and founders often share the belief that they only have two options when it comes to raising funds for growth: either ask their traditional bank for the cash, or dilute their business by selling equity.
Debt funding, which BOOST&Co offers in the form of term debt, alongside our sister company’s working capital product suite, requires no equity dilution and our agile nature means we can often be more flexible with our lending criteria than traditional banks.
Debt funding can be a great option for businesses that are pre-profit, but on a runway to profitability and for those that require significant capital investment to take their business to the next level – activities like R&D and M&A.
What do you think the future looks like for Manchester’s tech sector?
The diversity and breadth of the technology sector in Manchester and the North West is undisputed and that very reputation has positive implications; with more tech-enabled businesses in the region, it attracts high quality tech talent – and this in turn encourages more technology businesses to set up shop or open offices here.
There is a thriving business community here too, so we hope that we continue to see the kind of collaboration that has enabled the region’s tech sector to succeed.
Tell us something that we might not know about your company?
As well as offices across the UK, we have bases in Cape Town and the Philippines!
