The Queensland Government has released the details of round 5 of the Business Growth Fund grant program. The Business Growth Fund (BGF) targets high-growth businesses who can accelerate growth, drive Queensland’s economy and employ more Queenslanders.
It is open to small to medium sized businesses with between 5 and 49 employees and provides funding for high growth businesses to buy specialised equipment, enabling them to unlock growth potential, increase production, expand their workforce, and maximise economic returns to move them to the next stage of growth. Grants between $50,000 and $75,000 are available and successful applicants must co-contribute at least 40% of project costs.
Each grant round has specific information that businesses should be aware of to help them manage their applications.
Successfully funded businesses are expected to:
- increase confidence for growth, transitioning from small to medium-sized
- increase productivity, turnover, profit and/or employment by 20%
- improve confidence to automate, scale up, increase market share, diversify and/or exploit exporting opportunities.
The program is administered by the Department of Employment, Small Business and Training (DESBT).
Eligibility Criteria
You must be an established, financially sound, small to medium-sized Queensland business with the potential for high-growth within the next 2 years. High-growth is defined as an average annualised 20% increase in turnover, and/or employment in the last 2 years.
To be eligible the minimum cost of the project, taking into account the co-funding required, must be $83,333 and is focused on specialised equipment which is “considered an independent or additional piece of complex machinery that will have a direct impact on the operations of the business to increase, automate or enhance productivity and presents a significant investment to the business. The impact of the equipment unique to the growth of the business and local economy will be taken into consideration.”
Examples of eligible highly specialised equipment include (but are not limited to):
- production equipment to meet otherwise unachievable growth demand
- advanced manufacturing or digital equipment and systems
- advanced logistics systems and equipment.
Expressions of Interest (EOI) are now open.
The application process involved 3 stages:
- Stage 1 – Expression of interest (EOI)
- Stage 2 – Full application
- Stage 3 – Pitch
The Closing Date for Stage 1 is 5.00pm, Friday 2nd of June, 2023.
You can check your elgibility here and further details of the program and how to apply can be found here.
Please contact the team at MGI if you have any questions or require further information.
