MIA Sponsors

Amatica delivers market-leading website design, online customer experience, straight-through processing and self-service information systems for a variety of customers in the public, private and financial services sectors.

Our experience covers internet, intranet, self-service kiosks, website design, usability and accessibility, content management and knowledge management solutions. We also provide high availability web hosting services to support e-business applications.

BBC Radio Merseyside has more listeners than any other in the BBC local radio chain outside London. News, sport, the arts, entertainment and specialist programmes are all broadcast from our new studios in Hanovers St in Liverpool city centre, part of the new city centre regeneration scheme.

We do much more than radio - we run the BBC Liverpool website, a BBC shop and a BBC bus. We pride ourselves on our close links with our audience and this year celebrate 40 years serving the people of Merseyside, Cheshire and beyond.

You can hear us on 95.8fm, 1485 am, DAB and live on the internet. To check out our new programme schedules log on to www.bbc.co.uk/radiomerseyside Oh yes, and thanks for listening.

Brabners Chaffe Street LLP is one of the leading North West law firms with its head office in Liverpool. The firm offers businesses a full range of legal services. In addition, to business owners and other high net worth individuals, they provide a range of private client services.

The Liverpool office is highly regarded for its corporate transactional work providing a full range of commercial legal services to all types of organisations including public and private companies, charities, and financial institutions. Specialist services include succession, tax planning for the business and its shareholders, fundraising, acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures, re-organisations, corporate structures and governance, commercial agreements and terms and conditions of business, intellectual property and specialist advice in a range of IT areas.

C-Tech Innovation is a leading innovation management and technology development company. We have been helping our customers to benefit and grow through innovation for the last 40 years.

Our strengths include project and programme management, research and development, technical due diligence, market and technical awareness, IP exploitation, multidisciplinary consultancy and innovation training.

Our experience covers creating new products and processes, implementation of novel technologies, contract and collaborative research, technology transfer and commercialisation. With our own laboratories and workshops at our facility near Chester, we can take projects from concept, through design to construction and commercialisation. This unique combination enables us to provide a flexible, tailored and confidential service.

Insider Media is one of the leading independent business information publishers based outside London. The company produces a wide range of monthly business magazines, annual directories and guides, providing a portfolio of professional products covering corporate finance, commercial property and general business activities of importance to company directors.

Included in our portfolio are the award-winning Insider magazines covering the North West, Yorkshire, Midlands, Wales and the South West. Insider also organise and host many prestigious events and award ceremonies across these regions.

We offer members a wide range of services, support and opportunities that are aimed at keeping them ahead of their competition. From training to trade missions, representation to networking, the breadth and depth of what Liverpool Chamber provides ensures that members can operate more effectively and productively, secure in the knowledge that, behind them they have a supportive organisation, established for over 150 years.

We are equipped to react and respond effectively on behalf of local businesses to regional, national and international issues.

MC Vanguard Corporate Finance is focused wholly on helping the owners of Merseyside businesses get a better result from their business. We do this through working alongside them as they develop their strategy, providing hands-on guidance and assistance during profit improvement projects and delivering corporate finance support to those clients who have plans to grow by acquisition.

Our work covers the full business life cycle from the launch of new businesses with an innovative product or service, through to helping clients to develop and implement succession and exit plans so as to maximize the value earned from their years in the business.

As a relationship bank, we have structured our business towards meeting the needs of our technology customers. Our Technology Sector business service is dedicated to helping dynamic organisations bring new products to market or develop their existing business. We have the size, strength and expertise to take your business further and help your business succeed.

Whether your business needs guidance with finance, managing excess cash, processing transactions or managing risk, our wide network of specialists and support organisations offer a range of products and services designed to help you take your business further.

The North West Fund is a £185m evergreen investment fund established to provide debt and equity funding from £50,000 to £2m to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) based in, or relocating to, the North West of England. The Fund is one of the largest public sector funds of its kind in Europe and the largest in the UK.

Made up of a £92.4m European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grant, and a £92.4m loan from the EIB, The North West Fund is the umbrella name for six sub funds that are available to businesses in the form of debt, equity and quasi-equity. These funds are managed by six fund managers under contract with North West Business Finance Limited (NWBF), which has been established to oversee the delivery of the Fund under the Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises Initiative (JEREMIE) in the North West.

Paver Smith is Merseyside’s leading public relations and communications agency.

At Paver Smith we manage our clients’ reputations by helping the media report the positive things they do to the people that matter.
As a result, our clients sell more of the goods and services they provide, or deliver their message in a clear and informative manner to the people they need to.

We have achieved benchmarks such as Investors in People and the PRCA's Consultancy Management Standard because our clients expect nothing less than proven excellence. So, nothing less than excellent results is what you can expect when you deal with us.

It is now easier than ever for businesses wanting to access knowledge and expertise. The University of Liverpool's Business Gateway is a single point of contact helping put you in touch with: cutting edge knowledge and expertise; high quality graduates and training; and award winning scientific, technical and business facilities.

The University has expertise in many areas including: engineering, manufacturing, biotechnology, science, ICT, financial, legal, and much more.

In many cases the commercial value of an innovation is greatly - even wholly - dependent upon the strength of the legal protection obtained for it. W. P. Thompson and Co are recognised experts in the acquisition, maintenance and enforcement of intellectual property rights, particularly patents for new inventions, design rights to protect product appearance, and trademark rights to protect a firm's image, reputation and goodwill.

W.P. Thompson and Co are proud to have served business on Merseyside since 1873, but also have offices in London, Munich, Letchworth and Hull. Through long-standing relationships with IPR firms throughout the world, and thanks to the diverse technical expertise of their patent attorneys, W.P. Thompson and Co are able to respond to clients' IPR requirements irrespective of the subject matter and territory concerned.