Rawpixel has become the first business in Gloucestershire to benefit from a grant from the European Regional Development Fund and the Fastershire project to access superfast broadband.

Based in Redmarley, Rawpixel is a leading producer of digital design resources, with a portfolio of over 1 million digital stock photos and illustrations created from scratch by the Raw pixel creative team.

They selected CommsCo as their supplier and now have access to a dedicated service of 100 Mbps both download and upload, where before speeds only reached a maximum of 4 Mbps download and 0.5 Mbps upload.

Fastershire is a partnership between Gloucestershire County Council and Herefordshire Council to help provide high speed broadband across both counties.

Louise Churchill, director of corporate services and business development, from Rawpixel said, "Increased connectivity speed will enable us to be a recognised global design resource and complete with the big established sites such as Shutterstock, iStockphoto and other stock photo/image sites.

"We manage huge amounts of data which, without fibre broadband, is impossible and so a lot of business activities which we would like to handle in the UK are being sent to our overseas team.

"We are in constant communication with our Thailand office via Skype or Slack and all the software we use is Cloud-based and often collaborative in nature. The poor broadband often caused us problems using this technology and meant we couldn't effectively access our digital asset database.

"As our business continues to grow we would like to increase the activities we do in the UK and thus employ more staff here, the increased connectivity we now have should mean we are now able to do this."

Nav Mohammed from CommsCo said, "Upon initial engagement with Rawpixel, it became quickly apparent that they required an ultrafast connection of 100MB due to the unique nature of their business and the sheer bandwidth required for Rawpixel to operate effectively as one the largest stock image providers in the world.

"A dedicated Fibre to the Premises connection was quickly identified as the most reliable and economically viable technology for meet the requirement.

"Given the remote location of the customer the overall process was very successful and Rawpixel now have the ability to fulfil their true business potential."

Councillor Lynden Stowe, Gloucestershire County Council cabinet member for economy, skills and growth, said, "Being able to access faster broadband is vital for our local businesses. Rawpixel is an incredible Gloucestershire-based digital business operating across the world. I'm delighted they have been able to benefit from this grant to provide the connectivity they desperately need."

"Through our Fastershire project we are committed to expanding the availability of faster broadband to those who need it, and through grants like these we can support our businesses in being able to grow and compete on a local, national and international scale."

The Marches and Gloucestershire broadband grant gives eligible small businesses up to £25k to fund the installation of a superfast broadband connection.

If you run a business which cannot access speeds of over 30Mbps, and you are not already part of any current superfast broadband rollout plans, then you could be eligible for a grant. Visit www.fastershire.com

Pictured, left to right:: Cllr Lynden Stowe from Gloucestershire County Council, Louise Churchill from Rawpixel and Nav Mohammed from CommsCo