How Creare Capital is helping creative businesses recognise their value and raise funds for growth

Creare Capital is changing the way the creative sector and the world of finance interact, with their innovative funding finding platform specifically for creative industry businesses. Their aim is to help creative SMEs find grant, loan and investor opportunities to help them scale and grow their business. In its current form, Creare Capital is already solving a big problem, but the team’s wider vision sets out to look at how credit risk is assessed for the sector. To do this, the team need to understand the sector better, the dynamics that come with such expansive, growing industries, and the needs of each sub-sector.

We sat down with Director Xinyi Gao, to get under the skin of why Creare Capital exists and understand their plans to cultivate a future where the creative sector, in coalition with the finance sector, can scale and thrive.

Why did you start Creare Capital? Was there something missing in the cultural and creative industries’ landscape?

The issue of access to finance has been a longstanding problem for the sector. The more solutions that attempt to address the challenge, the stronger the position of the creative industries. What’s important for us in the work we’re doing, is to give creative businesses the opportunity to discover the financial support and funding structures out there that enables them to grow, and in turn, scale the wider sector.

With a recent change in Government, there’s also been a shift in attitude towards the cultural and creative industries and how we understand their value. We tuned into a Select Committee meeting on AI and Creative Tech towards the end of last year, which I believe Caroline Norbury OBE (Chief Executive of Creative UK) appeared on, and there was a discussion point which asked each thought leader to consider issues around access to finance. One of the committee members made an interesting observation that venture capitalists (VCs) in the UK don’t really understand the creative sector, when it comes to lending, which is one problem Creare Capital is trying to eliminate.

As we know, the cultural and creative industries is a very broad umbrella of specialisms – aside from people on stage or creating art, you have the creator economy itself which is the fastest growing type of SME globally. How is that content and capital being captured? The content creator industry is something that has gained incredible momentum over the past ten years, especially since the introduction of TikTok, but it’s operating in isolation as an industry. Then you’ve got gaming, and software development, immersive tech; there’s so many avenues and specialties in the creative sector that go under the radar of investors – particularly, we’ve found, in the UK.

This is where another barrier arises that we are trying to resolve; if a creative business struggles to raise money in the UK, they end up going elsewhere, looking internationally, because of obstacles they face here. Creare Capital essentially wants to bridge this gap between those avenues for creatives and their businesses, and the different types of funding opportunities that are out there, so that the UK can ultimately retain its creative talent.

Xinyi with Creative UK’s Chief Executive, Caroline Norbury OBE, at The Big Creative UK Summit: Investment for Growth in March 2025

What do you think the value is of the cultural and creative industries?

I want to come at this question from a perspective outlining what is undervalued about the cultural and creative industries. The appreciation of the sector really came to a head globally during COVID, where people were stuck indoors, isolated, and were absorbing content, films, TV, virtual events and performances, but not valuing how they came to be experiencing such things. Or rather, how close a lot of these businesses and creators came to collapse or bankruptcy. People consume creativity, arts and culture for different reasons, e.g. from an emotional standpoint, for enjoyment, however quite often without considering its value beyond that. At Creare Capital, we often ask: how do we truly value the cultural and creative industries? The sector currently contributes approximately £125 billion in GVA to the UK economy, an impressive figure, but one that arguably falls short of its full potential. We believe the sector remains structurally undervalued and under-supported. If creative businesses, particularly SMEs, had the same access to finance enjoyed by sectors like manufacturing or construction, the economic contribution of the creative industries could be significantly higher. While it’s difficult to quantify precisely, there is little doubt that £125 billion represents a floor, not a ceiling, for what this sector could deliver with the right backing.

Since the inception of Creare Capital two years ago, we have mostly been doing research and development (R&D) across the sector. Rather than us coming in and saying, ‘this is our solution’, we believe it is important for the sector to look at itself first and foremost, and the solutions are likely to come from within. For example, let’s look at the arts specifically – theatre, film and TV, dance, visual art – they are largely output-driven. In theory, that should appeal to banks and the financial sector, which often look for tangible deliverables when considering lending. But lenders have internal risk criteria they need to satisfy, and that’s where many creative businesses fall short. Banks aren’t persuaded by how exciting or culturally valuable a company is; their decisions are guided by what their risk teams say. Lending decisions are built on clear, linear logic; ‘one plus one equals two’. Some might argue that’s too rigid for the creative sector, but for banks, it provides a framework for predictability and return, and that’s ultimately how they assess risk.

This approach for the creative industries might look something like you’re a founder, and you want to create a product that is an immersive experience for an audience, or produce an interactive game; it’s only once you start to scale your idea that you reach a tipping point between the creativity and commercial outcomes. At that tipping point, you’d look to raise funds from a bank or investor. Then the founder would need to consider, ‘how can I make this happen?’ or ‘how can I make what I’m doing viable and scalable?’.

An area where this is currently playing out is, again in the creator economy. Goldman Sachs wrote an article last year that claimed the creator economy could almost double in value by 2027. Suddenly you have a commercial model whereby creators put themselves out there with an established brand or creative concept, and they ask subscribers to pay them what they think the content is worth. These types of subscription models are generating huge businesses for these individuals, because for the first time, it’s not them asking ‘how do I value myself?’, it’s them saying ‘I’m letting you value what I do’, which has been interesting. Now we’re seeing banks trying to pay attention because they want to get involved in the whole creator economy and its monetary value. So, the value of the creative sector starts with the sector itself recognising it’s worth.

If you had one wish for the future of the sector and for the future of Creare Capital, what would it be?

One wish we have for the future of Creare Capital is to first and foremost create change within how the sector views itself. If we do that, then that’s a strong foundation for the sector’s development and investor relations. In practice, Creare Capital is a bit of a thought leader in this space, looking at how credit risk is assessed for the creative industry and creative businesses. Our understanding of the financial sector is they don’t care about fairness or how capital is distributed, they just want to make a return. However, they’re not going to make a return on a sector they don’t understand, so that’s why the creative sector has first got to understand itself, second know how to present itself to funders and what to ask for, then third, funders will know what is needed and if or how they’ll make money.

At the moment, the finance sector currently perceives investing in the creative industries as too risky. If we can better help them understand the cultural and creative industries and de-risk their approach to the sector, then they will be more inclined to lend. That’s where the future of Creare Capital, or future phases rather, of what we’re trying to achieve come into play.

How can the sector understand and value itself better? But on the flip side, if the appetite isn’t there from the lenders to lend, then it won’t work anyway. Ultimately, if the lenders aren’t in the same room speaking with those in policy or from the sector, then really the creative industries are just in an echo chamber.

On this basis, hopes for the future of Creare Capital is intertwined really with our hopes for the future of the creative industries. It’s why events like Climb and The Big Creative UK Summit (Investment for Growth) which happened earlier this year are so crucial; it gets the creative sector and creative businesses in a room with financiers.

Tell us a bit about the platform you’ve created to help creatives find funding opportunities and investment.

We launched our platform in 2024, where users sign up for free to create a profile, answer some simple business-related questions, then we present each person with a list of funding opportunities relevant to their situation. These cover grants, loans and investment. We currently do not recommend what to go for, but as our platform evolves, this will be something we hope to help with.

We’ve currently accumulated 300+ different funding opportunities across different creative sub-sectors. Where we signpost opportunities, it’s then up to the individual or business to go and apply natively on the website or application pages. There’s certain information we don’t ask for at the moment that is important for mapping out data in policy and EDI, like social demographic, ethnic background, gender, but we’re working on that. As mentioned, this service is completely free, and we want to keep that element in future iterations of the platform.

The next question is, how do we evolve our platform in line with our vision? Ultimately, we want future versions of our platform to bring consistency to an application process, where the lenders and grant providers get all the information they need, and creatives and businesses are providing their information through an approachable, easily understandable format. The results can then give users an indicative ‘yes we’re interested, you meet our criteria’ or if you don’t meet our criteria, what can that user do next to help make them investment ready, and how do we, Creare Capital, embed this support in our platform?

Resilience is essential for creative businesses. Speaking from experience, the journey is rarely straightforward – early days can be tough, and the path often uncertain. It’s so important to persevere, remain adaptable, and explore every funding opportunity available. Grants, support schemes, and creative problem-solving often bridge the gap before major breakthroughs occur.

Consider Synthesia’s journey. When Victor Riparbelli co-founded the synthetic media company, securing capital in the UK was incredibly difficult. Local investors were cautious, and Innovate UK grant funding became their lifeline, sustaining the business until venture funding was possible. Fast-forward a few years later to January 2025, and Synthesia announced that they had been successful in securing $180m in in Series D funding to drive global growth, valuing the business at over $2bn.Their story shows that good ideas, combined with resilience, can lead to lasting success.

Creare Capital is building something designed to make access to this support clearer, faster, and fairer — and they’d love your help. If you can spare just three minutes, they’re collecting short responses from creative founders to shape the future of finance in the creative sector. Share your perspective here!

To find out more, visit their platform at www.crearecapital.com