Sage in call for £350m tech fund to boost growth

Sage has called for the Government to launch a fund of up to £350 million to encourage small firms to invest in new technology.

The software giant claims £230 billion could be added to the economy each year if smaller businesses adopted time-saving tech such as digital invoicing, as it would make them more productive.

A one-year Small Business Digital Growth Fund that would allow businesses to buy software and offset it against their corporation tax bill – based on a similar scheme in Australia – would cost between £300 million to £350 million, the FTSE 100 giant estimates.

The fund is among a series of policy proposals outlined in a strategy that Sage presented to senior politicians last month.

The company, which employs 11,000 worldwide and is worth almost £10 billion, warned Britain risks falling behind other hi-tech nations in the race to go digital.

‘What we are saying to government is that we can’t just do nothing and wait,’ Sage boss Steve Hare told the Mail on Sunday.

‘These companies power over half our GDP and if you want Britain to grow, then you need small and mid-sized businesses to grow.’

‘If you’re not in the digital economy in the future, you won’t be in the economy.’

His comments were echoed by IBM’s UK-based boss, Nicola Hodson, who said: ‘Small and medium-sized companies are the backbone of the UK economy, supporting millions of jobs and providing tax revenues that help fund public services like the NHS. It’s vital that they adopt transformative tech.’