Channel 4’s Black in Business 2026 Shortlist: What Birmingham’s Black Entrepreneurs Should Do Next

On 15 July 2026, Channel 4 and Lloyds announced the nine businesses shortlisted for this year’s Black in Business initiative, now in its third year. Four winners will each receive £200,000 worth of free advertising airtime on Channel 4, a bespoke TV advert made for them, and six months of tailored marketing support and mentorship from Lloyds.

It’s a genuinely significant opportunity, and one built specifically for Black-owned businesses, not a mainstream scheme with a diversity add-on. But look down the shortlist and you’ll notice something: the nine businesses come from London, Yorkshire and Buckinghamshire. None of them are from Birmingham or the wider West Midlands.

That’s not a reason to shrug this off as irrelevant to our community here. It’s a reason to look closely at what got these nine businesses noticed, and start positioning your own business now so that next year’s shortlist reads differently.

What Black in Business Actually Offers

Black in Business was first launched by Channel 4 in 2023 and has run every year since, in partnership with Lloyds Business & Commercial Banking. It exists to give Black entrepreneurs a route to national advertising exposure that would otherwise be entirely out of reach for most small and growing businesses.

Here’s what’s actually on the table for this year’s four eventual winners:

• £200,000 worth of free advertising airtime on Channel 4 for each winning business
• A bespoke television advert produced specifically for their brand
• Six months of tailored marketing support
• Business mentorship led by Lloyds, focused on unlocking growth opportunities

The four winners are expected to be confirmed later this month, with their adverts set to air in 2027. Previous winners include Nylah’s Naturals and Flake Bake (2024), and The Gym Kitchen and The Turmeric Co (2023) — Channel 4 reports all four have gone on to see increased exposure, stronger brand recognition and significant business growth since taking part.

Amanda Murphy, CEO of Lloyds Business & Commercial Banking, was direct about why the programme exists at all: “Black in Business plays a vital role in helping to tackle some of the specific challenges that Black entrepreneurs can face… The programme was created to help close the gap in access to support and opportunity.”

That gap is real and well documented. Black-led businesses in the UK remain far more likely to expect difficulty accessing mainstream finance and exposure than white-led businesses, and traditional advertising budgets of this scale are simply not realistic for most Black-owned businesses trying to grow from the ground up. Programmes like this exist precisely because the standard route to that kind of visibility isn’t equally open to everyone.

This Year’s Shortlist, and What They Have in Common

The nine businesses shortlisted for 2026 span a genuinely wide range of sectors:

• Borough 22 — a London-based bakery making gluten-free and plant-based doughnuts
• Nala’s Baby — a family-founded skincare and haircare brand for babies and children
• SHYNE — a grooming brand for men with textured hair
• The Motherhood Group — a London-based support organisation for Black mothers
• Tilz Collection — a Yorkshire-based food and drink gifting company
• FlickFirst — a courier and logistics company
• All In A Box — a Buckinghamshire-based catering and events company
• RKY Careers — a London-based career development and training company
• SOUL CAP — a London-based inclusive swimwear brand

What they share isn’t location or sector. It’s that every one of them is a business with a clear, established product or service already live in the market, a distinct brand identity, and a specific, well-defined customer. Channel 4’s eligibility criteria require applicants to have had a product or service trading for at least six months before applying — this isn’t a scheme for very early-stage start-ups, it’s for businesses that already have something proven and are ready to scale.

Why No Birmingham Business Made the Cut This Year

Applications for the 2026 round closed on 7 June, so there’s nothing to apply for right now. But this is exactly the moment to be honest about why Birmingham businesses weren’t in the running this time, and to do something about it before next year’s window opens.

It’s very unlikely to be a shortage of strong Black-owned businesses in Birmingham. It’s far more likely to come down to two things: awareness that the programme exists at all, and readiness when it does. National initiatives like this tend to attract applicants who are already plugged into business networks that circulate this kind of opportunity — and if you’re not in those networks, you may never see the application window open before it closes.

The Bar You’ll Need to Clear

If you want your business in the conversation for next year, here’s what Channel 4’s criteria and the shortlist itself suggest you’ll need:

1. A live, trading product or service of at least six months. This isn’t for ideas on paper — it’s for businesses already operating.
2. A clear brand identity. Every shortlisted business has an instantly recognisable name, look and customer story — not just a product, but a brand.
3. Evidence you’re ready to scale. The judging criteria focus on ambition and readiness to grow through advertising specifically, so you should be able to show what growth would look like if you had national exposure tomorrow.
4. A strong, specific application. Channel 4 describes the process as “highly competitive” — a generic submission won’t cut it against businesses with polished brand stories.

How to Position Your Birmingham Business for Next Year

None of this is complicated, but it does take deliberate effort over the coming months rather than a scramble next spring. Here’s a practical sequence:

1. Tighten your brand story now. Look at how Nala’s Baby, SHYNE or SOUL CAP describe themselves in one line — specific, memorable, and instantly clear who it’s for. If you can’t describe your business that precisely yet, that’s your first job.
2. Document your trading history. Keep clean records of at least six months (ideally longer) of sales, customer feedback and growth, so you can demonstrate traction the moment an application opens.
3. Get plugged into the networks that will tell you when applications open. Follow Channel 4 Sales and Lloyds Business & Commercial Banking directly, but more importantly, connect with Birmingham-based Black business networks who circulate exactly this kind of national opportunity to their members.
4. Build your mentorship and marketing readiness in parallel. You don’t need to wait for Lloyds’ mentorship to start improving your marketing. Use free local business advice now so you walk into any future application already several steps ahead.
5. Practise telling your growth story out loud. Attend local pitch and networking events between now and next year’s application window opens, so your business story is well-rehearsed rather than freshly written under deadline pressure.

Local Support to Get You There

Birmingham and the wider West Midlands have real infrastructure for exactly this kind of preparation, much of it free:

• Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce’s Black Business Collective runs regular networking events, including brunches, where opportunities like Black in Business tend to circulate long before they hit national headlines.
• Legacy Centre of Excellence in North Birmingham and iSE Women’s Enterprise Hub in East Birmingham are community-led business support hubs backed by the West Midlands Combined Authority’s Race Equalities Taskforce, offering free advice on brand, growth planning and funding readiness.
• Access to Business, working with the Wolverhampton Black Business Network, offers similar signposting and support across the wider region.
• Birmingham Black Business Conference, taking place on 31 October 2026 at the Legacy Centre of Excellence, is a concrete date to put in your diary now — exactly the kind of event where you’ll meet other business owners further along this path and hear directly what worked for them.

None of these guarantee a spot on next year’s Black in Business shortlist. But turning up consistently to the rooms where this kind of opportunity gets talked about first is a large part of how businesses end up ready when the application window opens.

Conclusion

Channel 4 and Lloyds have built something genuinely valuable with Black in Business — a route to national exposure that doesn’t ask Black entrepreneurs to fit into a mainstream mould first. The fact that no Birmingham business features on this year’s shortlist isn’t a verdict on the strength of our business community; it’s a signal to close the awareness and readiness gap before applications reopen. Tighten your brand story, document your trading history, and get into the rooms — locally, first — where opportunities like this get shared. There’s no reason next year’s shortlist shouldn’t include a business from right here in Birmingham.

Want to be part of a community that shares opportunities like this as soon as they land, and swaps advice on getting your business ready for them? Join the Black Owned Birmingham Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/blackownedbirmingham/ — let’s make sure Birmingham businesses are in the room next time.