Invitation to Tender - Digital Tools for Access to Finance

Oxford Innovation Services (OIS) is the UK's leading specialist business support company. We work with businesses at all stages of development to maximise their growth potential, benefiting both the enterprise and its people through uniquely tailored programmes. The Access to Finance project (A2F) is financed by the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), part of the European Structural Investment Fund (ESIF) portfolio 2015 to 2020. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is the managing authority for the fund, which was established by the European Commission to help improve the competitiveness of SMEs by increasing their capacity and capability and promoting entrepreneurship to strengthen the pipeline of high growth businesses across England. A2F supports enterprises throughout Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. The extension to the original contract period will run from January 2020 - December 2022. This is a flagship business support project for the region and continues to attract significant attention from all stakeholders. A2F's team of highly experienced Business Finance Specialists work with eligible* businesses seeking to achieve growth and thus drive forward economic success. In addition to the 500+ businesses signed up to the Project, support will be delivered to a further 550 businesses through workshops, masterclasses and 1:1 mentoring in the development of compelling funding applications and raises. The source of these funds will be traditional debt, grant, angels and VCs plus emerging sources including the Crowd. Key objectives of this brief To obtain competitive tender proposals from suitably qualified providers for the provision of a video-based peer group learning platform as well as its online content. • Development, installation, hosting and operational support of virtual classroom software and underlying operating system. • Creation and production of video and digital course content to then be delivered on the platform, developed from the Project's existing 'Finance for Start Ups' course material • In addition to a virtual classroom, the platform should be capable of hosting our bespoke, Excel based, forecasting toolkit and outputting finished financial plans in pdf (or similar) format. • This is the first of what are anticipated to be a collection of online courses related to the key themes of the Access to Finance Project so the platform must have scalability.

Please complete the Supplier Questionnaire and provide a Tender Proposal as requested in Annex 1. Contact details: Any queries regarding this must be sent by e-mail to: Ben Norton, Project Operations Manager, [email protected]

Suppliers must confirm their expression of interest in this tender by e-mailing the above contact to ensure you receive any further information and clarifications. Deadline: 07/12/2020 - 6pm

Additional information: Please download the documents for full information and instructions and submit your tender by 6pm on 7th December 2020 by e-mail to [email protected].

Suppliers must also register their interest in this opportunity by e-mailing us asap and to ensure you receive any further clarifications if applicable