The West Midlands Growth Company (WMGC) is the strategic economic development agency for the West Midlands region.
WMGC has a broad remit across inward investment, capital investment, visitor attraction (business and tourism), internationalisation, business intelligence and regional business engagement. We focus on:
- Driving major market opportunities.
- Attracting transformative capital, and
- Promoting the region as a great place to visit and work.
The shareholders of WMGC are the West Midlands Combined Authority, seven West Midlands Metropolitan Councils and six of the region’s universities. A public-private partnership, WMGC also has over 100 commercial partners in the region. The low carbon sector is of increasing importance to the West Midlands economy, and we support further investment into this sector, actively promoting the region’s strengths in: smart grid solutions; energy storage and the built environment; its huge innovation eco-system; and the West Midlands’ identity as an energytech cluster. With collaboration being of increasing importance in addressing the energy needs of the region (and indeed the journey to net-zero), WMGC strives to make key connections across the public, private and academic sectors.
Through its capital investment team, WMGC holds and develops key relationships with global investors looking to deploy capital in the UK. Increasingly, these investors are looking for opportunities in ESG-compliant investments and low carbon infrastructure.
Furthermore, as a market-facing organisation, we’re engaging with a huge number of businesses across all sectors of the economy, and is able to offer insight into the energy needs of prospective and existing investors.
More information about the company
WMGC offers an ‘investor catalyst’ programme to potential new investors to the region, delivered by a team of sector experts. This includes a broad range of support services, ranging from property searches and tailored visit programmes, to insight and analysis, and introductions to universities, skills providers and partners. This often includes strategic introductions to a number of local stakeholders, including Energy Capital but also the Energy Systems Catapult, Tyseley Energy Park, Aston’s EBRI, Midlands Net-Zero Hub, the National Brownfield Institute and more.
Through a comprehensive programme of activity - spanning international sales missions, global marketing campaigns, and proposition development, WMGC translates and promotes the opportunities of the region’s energy ecosystem both domestically and overseas. Recently, the low carbon team has convened roundtable discussions on the West Midlands’ energy and transport systems, and the opportunity for commercial retro-fit in the region. Our programme of activity regularly includes hosting of international delegations to the region for familiarisation visits - visiting key innovation assets and meeting leading businesses, academics and regional leaders.
"Energy Capital is a huge differentiator for the West Midlands – it plays a key role in the way we promote this region (domestically and internationally) as a world-class investment “ location in the low carbon sector.”
