The Business Innovator Founder Scheme

The overarching visa scheme for entrepreneurs who wish to establish their own business in the United Kingdom is changing.

The existing “ Innovator Routes” and the “Start Up” routes to the Immigration Rules are being abolished.

These routes are replaced by the “ Innovation Founder Route”, which resembles that of the former Business Innovator Route. Up to 44% of applications under the previous Business Innovator route had been refused despite being endorsed by a designated body and the redefined route, aims to ensure more relevant applications.

Summary.

The scheme operates as follows:-

An individual who wishes to come to the United Kingdom to establish a new business idea of his own may wish to do so under the Innovator Founder Scheme.

He must approach one of three designated endorsing bodies with his business plan. If satisfied that the business is “ innovative, scalable and viable” the designated body may endorse the application.

The applicant must then apply for a visa and or permission to remain and must score seventy points under the points based system.

The heart of the assessment.

There is a double scrutiny of the business credentials of the application. Firstly by the endorsing body, and separately by the Home Office.

The Immigration Rules, whilst making endorsement a precondition of the application makes it clear that the Home Office themselves will scrutinise the merits of each application.

Probity

The number of endorsing bodies has now been reduced to three as follows:

• Geminus Innovation
• Envestors
• UK Endorsement Services

The criteria an applicant must meet to satisfy the Endorsing bodies and under the Immigration Rules have been tightened. Specifically: -

The Endorsing bodies must in addition to assessing the business viability of the application, are required to undertake due diligence in the form of the following two tests:

• The applicant is considered a fit and proper person
• The endorsing body has no concerns on the legitimacy of the applicants or any third party source of funding

So the applicant will not only have to justify his business, but possibly that of his investor.

Innovative / Scalable and Viable

Business Plans will need to be authoritative and detailed in terms of budgeting rather than generic and optimistic.

The applicant must show that they have will have two contact points with the endorsing bodies over the course of their permission to remain and the applicant must demonstrate that he is involved in the day to day running of the business.

An indication of what the Home Office are looking for is illustrated by what is required in order to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain after three years.

There is no longer a minimum criteria for investment of £50,000.

However after three years, the applicant will need to satisfy at least two requirements from paragraph INN 8.1, of which securing £50,000 investment is the simplest.

The emphasis is on the innovative nature of the business, and particularly of the nature of the product or service offered. The innovative, by their very nature do not have comparisons and are more likely to seek intellectual property protection.

 The remaining criteria necessitate an immediately lucrative profitability, or substantial investment as below:-

These requirements are ( at least two of the following ) : -

(i) at least £50,000 has been invested
(ii) the number of the business’s customers has at least doubled in 3 years and is currently higher than the mean number of customers for other UK businesses offering comparable main products or services;

or

(iii) the business has engaged in significant research and development activity and has applied for intellectual property protection in the UK;

or

(iv) minimum annual gross revenue of £1million last year

or

 (v) the business is generating a minimum annual gross revenue of
£500,000 in the last full year, of which one fifth are exports

or

(vi) created at least 10 full-time jobs for settled workers;

or

(vii) creation of new 5 full-time jobs for settled workers, each of which has a mean salary of at least £25,000 a year

The maintenance and English language requirements to the Immigration Rules remain the same.