Business Gateway has helped nearly 17,000 new or fledgling north and north-east firms in the past decade.
Teams delivering the support across the region have created or safeguarded more than 20,000 jobs over the same period, data from the Scottish Government-funded programme reveals.
The current Business Gateway model of free support to small and medium-sized enterprises was introduced in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire after Scottish Enterprise transferred responsibility for managing the services across the country to local authorities.
It was launched across the Highlands and Islands/Moray the following year, making 2019 the 10th anniversary of the service in the north.
Aberdeen-based business support organisation Elevator delivers the services in city and shire, as well as on Tayside, while in other parts of Scotland the programme is managed directly by councils.
The figures for the past 10 years reveal a total of 16,722 start-ups supported in the north and north-east, including 10,622 across Aberdeen-Aberdeenshire and 6,100 in Highlands and Islands/Moray.
There were 12,746 jobs created or safeguarded in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, and 7,300 in Highlands and Islands/Moray – giving a north and north-east total of 20,046.
Business Gateway’s Moray office supported more than 1,200 start-ups and helped in excess of 200 existing businesses develop and grow, contributing to the creation or safeguarding of 1,700-plus jobs.
More than 3,000 people in Moray have attended free workshops about starting, managing and growing a business since 2009.
Andy Cox, co-founder of Pop Up Designs, of Duffus, near Elgin, said: “Business Gateway gave us confidence, assuring us we had a marketable product, and so we invested a lot of our own money in buying machinery and building a workshop in our garden.”
A total of 22,000 people have attended Business Gateway workshops in the Highlands and Islands/Moray area in the past decade.