A young media entrepreneur has created jobs in Scotland after winning support from the British Business Bank.
Omar Etherington-Brown grew the team at his OJE Studios venture to five from two helped by a £10,000 loan from the Government-owned lender.
The recruitment will support a push for growth by OJE Studios, which provides services ranging from music and video production to photography.
Mr Etherington-Brown has moved the firm’s music production studio from Dundee to Edinburgh under the plan.
The 19-year-old recently left his job as a full-time software engineer to focus on developing OJE, which he founded last year with an initial £10,000 support from the bank.
“The finance from the Start Up Loans programme was pivotal to getting our studio to this stage,” said Mr Etherington-Brown. “When I first started, it was just me and my idea, and it’s been fantastic to see the business come to life.”
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Launching the business has involved harnessing the skills of photographers, videographer and editors to create what Mr Etherington-Brown described as “amazing content” spanning promotional photography, short films and music videos.
“We want to showcase the smaller and lesser-known parts of Edinburgh – from nightlife and restaurants to independent artists and venues,” he said.
The bank noted that that OJE has supported many community projects with videography and photography. It cited the Spit It Out Festival, which aims to bring together people from marginalised communities who have experienced discrimination because of mental ill health, and the Movement club night.
The loan to OJE takes the total provided to Edinburgh firms by the British Business Bank under the start up loans programme to £10 million.
The bank’s Barry McCulloch said the scale of the demand for funding shown demonstrated the entrepreneurial spirit in the city.
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He said creative businesses such as OJE Studios served important cultural functions while creating jobs and attracting investment into the sector.
“Since the launch of the programme, we have supported smaller businesses across a diverse range of sectors and this milestone highlights the success of the scheme in improving access to finance across all parts of the UK,” claimed Mr McCulloch.
The bank has provided 7,185 Start Up loans worth a total £67 million in Scotland. A business may benefit from a number of loans.
It said the Start Up Loans scheme has delivered over 105,000 loans across the UK, and provided more than £1bn of funding. Research for the bank found 31% of loans went to people formerly unemployed or economically inactive. 40% of loan recipients were women and 20% were from ethnic minority groups (not including white minorities).
The bank had provided £441m funding in total for 6,121 businesses in Scotland under all its programmes by December 31.
Some 90,201 UK firms had benefitted from £12.4bn total bank funding by the end of the year.
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The lender describes itself as the UK’s economic development bank. It was founded in 2014 by the Government led by David Cameron to support access to finance for smaller businesses across the UK.
The bank has developed a range of programmes for delivery by partner organisations.
It launched a £150m Investment Fund for Scotland which is administered by firms such as Maven, the FSE Group and DSL Business Finance.
The bank oversaw the delivery of the support provided for business amid the pandemic under coronavirus-related schemes such as the bounce back loan programme.
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