AN East Kilbride-based courier firm that was started by a man who was housebound for three years with an illness has been chosen to get support under a £825,000 programme to help early stage social enterprises grow faster.
Bruce Gunn's Delivered Next Day Personally is in the first cohort of seven firms picked to participate in the LaunchMe scheme for businesses that aim to deliver social or environmental benefits as well as a profit.
With backing from the Big Lottery Fund, the scheme aims to identify the most ambitious, early stage social enterprises in Scotland and connect them with investors looking for social as well as financial returns.
The companies chosen will follow a programme that includes getting them into the shape required to meet the standards set by investors and linking them with potential funders.
Participants will be able to apply for seed funding and additional funding of up to £100,000 to match any investment they secure.
Social Investment Scotland may provide funding for firms selected for the programme.
Billed as Scotland's first social enterprise accelerator programme, the programme is delivered by the Firstport development agency for start-up social enterprises.
Karen McGregor, chief executive of Firstport, said the programme offers a new approach to supporting ambitious early stage social enterprises that can achieve rapid scale and deliver social and economic benefits to communities across Scotland.
She said the first cohort includes "driven and innovative social entrepreneurs."
Mr Gunn suffered an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite on a family holiday to Spain in 2008, which led to a long-term illness.
"I went from being a successful IT consultant to joining the lost generation of disabled people on the scrapheap," said Mr Gunn, who started Delivered Next Day Personally in 2012 after getting frustrated in his search for suitable work.
The company employs people with disabilities as couriers to make deliveries in areas close to where they live. It has ten staff and works with 18 self-employed couriers.
Mr Gunn, aged 51, wants to roll the model out across Scotland.
The firms were chosen by an expert panel chaired by Jock Millican, who chairs the LINC Scotland angel investor organisation.
Mr Millican praised the quality of the applicants. He said: "The panel was looking for a business model that was eventually sustainable but it wasn't purely about profit - the businesses also had to demonstrate a social impact that benefits the community."
Other members of the first cohort are Sew Can Do Manufacturing; Bad Idea, which encourages young people to think about starting businesses; Inverness Kart Raceway; Citizen Bank, which rewards people for contributing to communities ; Homes for Good letting agency; Breadshare community bakery.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article