An electric motorbike showroom, a boutique bag shop using upcycled prints, and a paw-some bakery for pets are set to liven up shopfronts across the City of Melbourne - supporting local jobs and driving visitation.
Council's Small Business Grants Program will provide $520,000 across 24 local businesses, helping to kickstart new ventures and expand existing businesses in the city.
Grants of up to $30,000 will support businesses across a diverse range of sectors including retail, hospitality, manufacturing, technology and health and wellbeing.
These grants have a special focus on supporting businesses to set up in empty shopfronts or improve their offerings through fit-out works.
This builds on Council's Shopfront Activation Program, which helped to reduce shopfront vacancies from 20 per cent in January 2022 to 11.5 per cent in January 2024.
Organisations to receive funding include:
- Savic Motorcycles - a company that designs and manufactures high-performance electric motorcycles in Australia
- Beekeeper Parade - an up-and-coming retailer making bags and accessories using recycled clothes and fabric
- Supaw Pet Bakery - a unique bakery specialising in bespoke birthday cakes for dogs and cats
- Killara Café - a social enterprise that employs Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, with plans to establish a café with a culturally safe working environment
- Virtetic - a digital health company developing game-based virtual reality therapeutics to assist people living with limb loss.
Council is also supporting and promoting business events by investing $100,000 in the Business Events Sponsorship Program.
Grants of up to $10,000 have been allocated to seminars, workshops and networking functions across a diverse range of sectors - encouraging workers to share ideas and drive innovation into the city.
Business events to receive funding include:
- Power Utilities Australia - a forum to discuss the opportunities and challenges of evolving the energy sector
- Bionics Institute Innovation Lecture - bringing together members of the medtech sector to share knowledge on medical innovation
- Enactus Australia Championships - a multi-day event focused on innovative ideas in the social impact space, attended by more than 300 university, business and corporate leaders
- The 13th Annual Microcap Investment Conference - a platform for emerging ASX-listed fintech companies to present their companies to investors
- The Melbourne Business Analytics Conference - a seminar for business professionals to enhance knowledge in machine learning, AI and advance data analytics.
