In order for us to offer you an innovation loan you will need to return all specified information and satisfactorily pass all checks. Your project cannot progress without this information.
We will carry out a series of checks, such as checks to verify the identity of your business through the ‘know your customer’ process. These will include:
- anti-money laundering checks on the identity of the people in the company identified as key stakeholder and beneficial owners
- commercial due diligence on the information in your business plan
- enhanced due diligence for businesses of increased risk, such as those with politically exposed persons.
Setting up your project
If you are successful in being offered an innovation loan, you will receive an email from the Innovation Funding Service prompting you to enter the information required for your project setup.
You will need to complete the following steps in your online project setup.
Project details
- the target start date
- the project location
- the name of the project manager.
Finance contact
You must provide the name of a finance contact. This person is responsible for supplying any additional information we may need to complete our detailed credit analysis on your organisation. This person will also be responsible for submitting drawdown requests when your project is live.
Bank details
You must supply your organisation’s bank details so that we can validate them.
Project finance checks
We will check the eligibility of your project costs. If we have any queries around your finances we will use this section to contact you.
Spend profile
Once we have confirmed your project spend is eligible, we will ask you to profile your costs across the duration of the project.
During the project setup we will also finalise the loan agreement. This includes setting the project baselines for cost, schedule and scope and any specific conditions to be set out in the loan agreement, including corporate authorisations. This may not be the same as that set out in your application.
Security taken by Innovate UK
In entering into a loan agreement you grant permission for Innovate UK to take security during the lifetime of the loan agreement.
Security might include:
- a general corporate debenture
- charges over a specific asset or assets that have been purchased with the loan
- charges over intellectual property developed with proceeds of the loan.
Specific terms will be set out as part of the loan agreement. Further legal agreements may be needed to cover these forms of security.
We will not require you to provide personal guarantees.
You should take independent advice.
If you are not successful
You will be notified of your application being declined on the application submission system with feedback as to why. No additional feedback can be provided. You cannot appeal this decision.
Carrying out your project
Drawing down your loan
During the availability period you will be able to draw down money from your loan facility every three months in order to deliver your project.
The amount you draw down will be based on your forecast expenditure on eligible project costs for that three month period. Costs are only eligible if they are incurred and paid between the project start and end dates.
You will need to complete Innovate UK Loans Ltd’s standard request template in order to request to draw down the money. Your drawdown request will only be granted if it meets our project progress conditions and financial and reporting conditions.
We may stop drawdowns at any time if:
- a project is not performing as expected or appears to be going significantly off target
- the financial health of the business has significantly deteriorated
- the business is not meeting its obligations of the loan agreement – for example, by providing financial information when required.
Under all circumstances, we would discuss this in detail with you first.
Monitoring and reporting on your project
You will be assigned a monitoring officer for the duration of your project. They will help to make sure your project complies with our terms and conditions. They are not responsible for overall project management.
The monitoring officer will meet with you every three months to ensure your project is on track.
We will also need to receive financial updates from you in the form of credit reviews every three months through our credit team. This is in addition to you providing an annual credit review.