Make has bases in Ten Streets in the the city’s northern docklands and the Baltic Triangle and supports more than 70 tenants and residents in the cultural and creative sectors

Social enterprise Make, which supports entrepreneurs in Liverpool’s creative and cultural sectors, has secured a £150,000 investment to create new space for education, events and classes.

Make is a Community Interest Company social enterprise and operates from properties in both Ten Streets in the the city’s northern docklands and the Baltic Triangle. Founded in 2012, it now employs seven people, and supports more than 70 tenants and residents in the cultural and creative sectors.

Makerspace

The £150,000 from First Ark Social will fund redevelopment at the Ten Streets venue for the development of ‘makerspace’. Make North Docks opened in spring 2016 and has been working on growing the facility for the past three years.

Through First Ark the Make team accessed the Reach Fund to support plans for investment readiness, prior to being awarded a mix of grant and loan funding from First Ark’s Invest for Impact fund. 

Make’s Ten Streets venue is one of 30 businesses supported by the Beautiful Ideas Company’s LaunchPad programme. After an initial investment of £30,000, it has since received £87,000 from other investors, before securing this latest tranche of funding from First Ark.

Track record

Paula Brown, investment manager at First Ark, said: “Make has a fantastic track record in helping people thrive in the creative industries, with great stories of people growing out of the space to do things such as opening shops and employing staff.” 

The Make team is planning on completing the redevelopment by autumn 2018, creating a space in the emerging Ten Streets area that is suitable for multiple uses:

• Adding further woodwork, needle felting and drone coding courses, as well as more suitable space for education
• Host gatherings, conferences and meet-ups for the sector, supporting and growing the local creative community
• It will host an increasing number of exhibitions and creative works, building on the LEAP 2017 festival, LJMU MA degree show and Captain Beefheart exhibition it has housed recently
• Provide a community space for parties, quizzes and gigs, complimenting the developing Ten Streets offer
• Increased capacity means Make also plans to employ another five people in 2018, almost doubling its current workforce to 12 people

Kirsten Little, Make chief operating officer and founding director, says: “We’re really excited to receive this investment which means we can do more to support artists, makers and creatives with better facilities and more opportunities.

“Building the creative community here has always been the driving force behind our decisions and it’s great that investors share in that vision.”