Investible Project Readiness and Blended Finance Studio

- Councils and smaller sponsors repeatedly commission expensive bespoke support. - Evidence, assumptions and models are recreated for each funding round. - Projects enter assurance before critical delivery, commercial or financing gaps are visible. - Limited internal capacity favours sponsors able to buy major consultancy support. - Weak projects consume appraisal time before being deferred or rejected.

Individual sponsors can buy fixed-price readiness sprints. Combined authorities and councils can commission cohorts to improve pipeline quality before formal appraisal. Expert advisers remain accountable for final analysis; the platform standardises evidence collection, modelling and review rather than automating judgement.

There is direct evidence of a capability gap and existing willingness to pay. The commercial hypothesis is that standardised readiness sprints can resolve early gaps for less than a bespoke top-tier engagement while creating better inputs for later independent appraisal.

Take three recently approved, deferred or rejected regional projects and reconstruct their readiness journey. Interview sponsor teams and appraisers to identify duplicated work, missing evidence and typical external cost. Offer one paid readiness sprint with a fixed deliverable and compare its result with the formal appraisal feedback.

A defensible service would accumulate a structured library of local project requirements, evidence requests, appraisal comments, sector benchmarks and finance structures. Version-controlled assumptions, reviewer sign-off, provenance and reusable combined-authority configurations matter more than generic text generation.

More mature projects entering appraisal, lower avoidable consultancy spend, faster financing discussions, clearer rejection reasons and fairer access for capable sponsors without large advisory budgets.

Proxy based — medium confidence.

- Readiness diagnostic, five to eight expert days: £4,000-£7,500 per project. - Full pre-application readiness sprint, approximately 15-25 expert days: £12,000-£25,000 per project. - Sponsor cohort or authority licence with a defined number of projects: test £50,000-£120,000 annually only after repeated delivery proves common workflows. - Benchmarks: Capgemini lists £468 per day; Jupiter £750-£1,050; Moore Insight £495-£1,700; Gartner lists £120,400 for a business-case engagement.

Evidence basis: Business Case and Benefits Services (£495–£1,700 per day) is the closest verified adjacent anchor used here. Its buyer, duration and scope are not assumed to be identical; implementation is separated where the opportunity requires integration, assurance or managed delivery.

Ask one funder, council, developer, investor network or programme sponsor to fund a paid test of Investible Project Readiness and Blended Finance Studio lasting 8–12 weeks, using an opening price of £4,000-£7,500 per project and covering 10–20 live organisations, projects, commitments or funding cases through one decision cycle. Paid scope: A service-plus-software studio that guides a sponsor from initial proposition through readiness diagnosis, Five Case Model evidence, financial scenarios, delivery dependencies, blended-finance options and an investor-grade evidence room. Charge by organisation, sponsored cohort, development/project or annual portfolio and compare the fee with adviser, grant/contract administration, due-diligence and impact-reporting effort. Measure completion, evidence quality, review time, adviser hours, funded/contracted outcomes and reporting acceptance. Continue only if at least 70% complete, a tangible funding/procurement outcome is achieved and the sponsor buys the next cycle. Stop or reprice if evidence is not accepted, no outcome is attributable or sponsor willingness to pay is absent.

Raise the score if sponsors pay for a fixed-scope sprint and appraisers report materially better submissions. Reduce it if buyers view the work as inseparable from a full consultancy mandate or if project variation prevents a repeatable workflow.