The world’s largest baby and toddler swimming company, Honiton-based Water Babies, has become the latest business to join Beacon, the South West’s peer-to-peer business network.

The hugely successful company has 46 franchises across the UK, Ireland and Australia and teaches more than 26,000 children to swim every week.

By becoming a Beacon company, Water Babies will have access to a unique cross-sector peer-to-peer network, which exists to share best practice and boost the economy.

Beacon was first set up in 2003 to identify, validate and bring together top performing businesses. It has recently been taken over by Plymouth University and strengthened by becoming a cornerstone of GAIN, the Growth Acceleration and Investment Network.

GAIN has been established by Plymouth University, Plymouth City Council and Tamar Science Park to accelerate the creation, growth and investment in high quality businesses and ideas to create wealth and jobs in the South West peninsula.

Steve Franks, Managing Director of Water Babies said: “Having grown a fantastic business, our goal now is to maintain high levels of quality, innovation and customer care. Becoming a Beacon member gives us access to some of the finest business minds in the Westcountry and a genuine opportunity to observe first class companies and learn from their successes and failures.

“When you’re working hard on your own business, you become so focused that it can actually be quite an isolating experience. Exchanging experiences with other Beacon members can be illuminating and extremely helpful when it comes to bench-marking and problem solving – sometimes you just need a little help connecting the dots in order to reach the next level.”

The Beacon network currently comprises of 234 independently validated companies turning over £2.6bn and employing 31,000 people in the South West, across all sectors. It is delivered and hosted by Tamar Science Park on behalf of Plymouth University, and is supported by GAIN.

Sue Baker, head of network development at Beacon said: “We’re delighted to welcome Water Babies to Beacon, and very excited for the wealth of knowledge and experience they will bring to the network. Water Babies is an excellent example of a company rooted in the South West that through hard work and relentless enthusiasm has grown organically to become the largest company of it’s type in the world.

“I’m sure they will be an inspiration to many of the other companies who are a part of Beacon and Beacon Pathfinder, our new programme for smaller, high growth potential businesses in the region.”

To find out more about Water Babies, visit www.waterbabies.co.uk. For more information about Beacon and Beacon Pathfinder visit www.beaconsw.org, or email [email protected].

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