Lloyds Bank signs as Young Guns’ second headline sponsor

Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking has signed to be Startups.co.uk’s second headline sponsor for Young Guns.

The Bank will now sponsor the Golden Gun award, which recognises the exceptional achievement of one Young Gun alumni business from any of the last cohorts.

Lloyds Bank joins chartered accountants and tax advisers haysmacintyre as a sponsor, which has supported Young Guns since 2007, as well as the haysmacintyre Top Gun – the Young Gun the judges feel stands out the most – every year.

As part of its new sponsorship agreement, Lloyds Bank will host the first Young Guns event of the year this February; a winter networking event for Young Guns alumni.

The bank has several services available for small businesses including a current account for new businesses that offers 18 months free business-to-business (B2B) banking, financial support, business loans, hire purchase, overdrafts, invoice finance and credit cards.

Reaching its 15th year in 2017, Young Guns celebrates the most outstanding and promising young entrepreneurs in the UK under the age of 35.

The exclusive annual index only selects 30 businesses every year, which must have raised either £1m+ in funding, or be achieving revenues upwards of £1m.

Last year’s Young Gun cohort, which included Bloom & Wild’s Aaron Gelbard, Cornerstone’s founder Oliver Bridge, and former Apprentice winner Joseph Valente, had helped to create more than 1,200 jobs between them and had an average turnover of £6.8m.

They have joined a now 480-strong alumni, which counts some of the biggest names in UK business amongst its ranks including Innocent Drinks and JamJar investments founder Richard Reed, Will Shu of Deliveroo, Holly Tucker MBE of Notonthehightstreet.com, and Ben Medlock MBE and Jon Reynolds MBE; who scooped the Golden Gun award in 2016 after their keyboard app SwiftKey was acquired by Microsoft for a reported $250m.

Lloyds Bank has said it is “is delighted to support the 2018 Young Guns programme”:

“Entrepreneurs, innovation and new businesses are vital to the UK economy, which is why we provide an extensive support network and comprehensive banking services to help British businesses prosper.

“We would like to extend our best wishes to all the candidates involved in Young Guns 2018.”

Young Guns 2018 will be opening for entries on Tuesday 1 May and closing at midnight on Friday 15 June. Visit https://startups.co.uk/young-guns/ for more information.