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Business Growth and Innovation Support
Launching or growing a business doesn’t have to be sink or swim. With the right support your technology or creative venture can make waves in the sector.
As a member of our hub, you’ll benefit from complimentary, all-encompassing business and innovation support, engaging networking, and skills development events to help you thrive. Connect with local businesses, the University of Bolton, regional support organisations and our experienced Innovation Director and in-house team, who are here to offer expert advice on all aspects of business growth. You’ll also be able to draw on our national team of business growth experts to fuel your growth.

Access to world-class support right where you work.
At The Wellsprings, we believe in nurturing every aspect of your business.
Our in-house Innovation Support team are on hand to offer advice, guidance, and signposting to support you with:
- Business Growth: Strategies to help your business expand sustainably.
- Funding Opportunities: Guidance on securing the necessary funds to fuel your growth.
- Marketing: Innovative marketing tactics to increase your brand visibility.
- Hiring: Best practices for building a strong and dynamic team.
- Strategy: Insightful advice to refine your business strategy.
Ian Balderson, Innovation Director for The Wellsprings
Ian has a wide range of experience with a number of senior roles including 30 years with Barclays Bank where he headed up and supported the teams responsible for leading the personal and business customer across Greater Manchester. Towards the end of his Barclays career, Ian led a programme working alongside the corporate division supporting larger clients both in private and public sectors with Digital Transformation acting as a consultant to help shape the strategy and assess the impact any transformation would have with both end users and their workforce. Since leaving the finance sector, Ian has created a programme to enable innovation within the Pharmacy sector, identifying, designing and overseeing development and testing of SaaS products to improve the sector and enable the smaller pharmacy to innovate in the same way as it’s larger competition. Directly prior to joining Oxford Innovation Space, Ian headed up project management and implementation integrating products into Legal firms both in the UK and USA.

Forge connections and a pathway to success.
Whether you’re a start-up, a creative professional, or a growing business, our expert team will provide you with the tools, guidance and support you need to achieve your business aims, build a supportive entrepreneurial community, and connect you with peers and experts in the town and across the country.
- Links with Business Bolton, the University of Bolton and regional business support organisations
- World-class ‘wrap-around’ support for growing businesses
- Funding opportunities, networking events, collaboration, and learning
- Access to our national network of more than 850 SMEs with support from business growth and innovation experts

Being part of the Oxford Innovation Space network mean that we can offer our entrepreneurs a range of connections, knowledge and infrastructure, and countless opportunities to help you achieve your goals.
- Founded by The Oxford Trust to provide support to science, technology, and knowledge-led early-stage companies
- The largest operator of innovation centres in the UK – we have over 35 years of experience of running spaces and places to support SMEs and entrepreneurs
- Our clients are universities, research and major science site owners, public sector, private investors and charities
- We deliver a range of objectives: support to high-growth SMEs and spin outs, on-going revenue and financial sustainability, economic development, jobs growth, profile, and business engagement
- Access to Beauhurst – a searchable database of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses
- One of the largest Angel Investment Networks in the UK
- Access to active investors who can add value to early-stage companies, in addition to capital
- Seven investment showcase events every year so that selected companies can meet potential investors
- Access to support and tools from Oxford Innovation Finance
Access to Tools

GROWTHmapper™
Oxford Innovation has developed GROWTHmapper™ to help high growth businesses achieve their ambitions. This digital diagnostic tool consolidates over 20 years’ experience of nurturing successful high growth businesses and is used to model your business across multiple areas for future strategic growth.

Beauhurst
Beauhurst is a searchable database of the UK’s fastest-growing businesses, along with the funds and accelerators that back them.
Oxford Innovation Space has a subscription to the Beauhurst platform, which allows us to track 32,000+ companies across the country, from early-stage start-ups to established scaleups.
Using Beauhurst we can find comprehensive information on sources of funding and grants.

Leading Edge Only
Oxford Innovation Space has an exciting partnership with Leading Edge Only (LEO), the world’s largest Global Innovation Platform. Operating in over 120 countries, LEO connects innovative fast-growth start-ups & scale-ups to corporations seeking the latest innovative technologies, products, services or expertise – corporates such as IBM, Fujitsu & Walgreens Boots Alliance.
This is a free service for those customers who are seeking to get their solutions and expertise in-front of major corporations.

AWS
Oxford Innovation Space is one of 160 official Amazon Web Service Partners worldwide, which means that you may be able to benefit from free support packages. This can include up to $25,000 of AWS credits.
Get insights, tips, tools, resources, and news from The Wellsprings to help you grow your business.
Find your space in an inspiring hub that celebrates creativity and individuality. Explore the flexible office space, coworking, and meeting rooms for innovative entrepreneurs at The Wellsprings.