20 years of supporting small businesses
This year, the Business & IP Centre at the British Library turns 20. Now a network of over 70 centres across the UK, we support over 40,000 small businesses to start and grow every year.
Start-up, start here!
Pop into the British Library or your local Business & IP Centre during our birthday month of March to find out what we’re all about. Meet our teams, be inspired by founders who started their businesses at the BIPC and discover the free resources available to help you start and grow your business.
New dates for events across the UK are being added all the time.
Sam Walton
Shop Start-up Stars
Shop our new Start-up Stars range. From socks to perfume, a showcase of just some of the creativity and innovation we've seen over the last 20 years. Whether a treat for you or a gift for someone else, feel good about supporting small businesses when you buy.
At the British Library and online.
‘For 20 years, the British Library’s Business & IP Centre has helped people turn ambition into action. By giving entrepreneurs free access to business resources, training, mentoring and powerful networks, the BIPC has built confidence where it matters most — right at the start.‘
– Tim Campbell, MBE, BIPC Ambassador
Be part of our next 20 years
Support the Business & IP Centre to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs:
£60 will give an entrepreneur access to a 1:1 session with our expert teams
£300 will open the door to a suite of start-up support a founder can’t get anywhere else
£500 will develop the skills a new entrepreneur needs so they are ready to start-up, and thrive
£4,000 will back an entrepreneur on their scaleup journey with intensive, hands-on support.
20 years. 20 insights from helping small businesses start and grow
Recollections, lessons and moments that stayed with the Business & IP Centre team.
For 20 years, the Business & IP Centre (BIPC) has helped people turn ideas into livelihoods, side hustles into employers, and kitchen table experiments into global brands. We’ve supported over 300,000 people across the UK – in libraries and online –and if there’s one thing we know, it’s that anyone can be an entrepreneur.
Explore 20 things our team has learnt along the way – each shaped by a conversation, a story or a moment we’ll never forget.
Our impact at a glance
- 300,000+ people supported
- 70+ centres in libraries UK-wide
- 68,800 businesses created
- 28,300 additional jobs created
- 2 x more likely to succeed
- £6.63 payback for every £1 of public money invested.
Thank you to all our supporters
We are grateful to the many funding partners and supporters who helped make this twenty-year journey possible, including:
- Arts Council England
- Barclays
- Department for Culture, Media and Sport / UK Government
- Eventbrite
- Greater London Authority
- HSBC
- Intellectual Property Office
- JPMorganChase
- Local authorities in England and Scotland
- Mellon Foundation
- Royal Bank of Scotland / NatWest Group
- Santander
- The Scottish Library & Information Council
- THG Ingenuity Cloud Services
- Vistaprint
- Yell
Along with the friends and partners who have supplied us with gifts in kind.
Audio-described version of What is the BIPC? video.
Got a brilliant business idea?
Did you know with the support of a Business & IP Centre, you are almost two times as likely to succeed? Whatever stage your business is at, the Business & IP Centre can help you take it to the next level for free.
Find out how can help you start and grow your own business.
How can the Business & IP Centre help me?
Contact us
Address
Business & IP Centre (BIPC)
Floor 1, The British Library
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
Or find your local business centre.
Email bipc@bl.uk
Instagram @businessandipcentre
LinkedIn @Business & IP Centre
Tiktok @businessandipcentre
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