Bloc Digital
13 July 2026
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Sector: Creative/Digital
Location: Derby
Bloc Digital is a Derby based business employing around 70 people in the UK. The business supports the aerospace, space and defence sectors with custom solutions for marketing & events, training & support together with digital transformation.
Bloc Digital helps clients to work smarter, be more connected and have a greater impact on them with digital twins, immersive training, data visualisation and Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) to name a few.
The business is proud to call multinational and blue-chip organisations like Airbus, Eurofighter Typhoon, Leonardo, Rolls-Royce, BAE, Boeing and Textron as its clients.
Challenges faced
Bloc Digital face a few barriers to growth (or learning curves):
Historically the business has grown organically by word of mouth and client recommendation. This has seen growth year-on-year for the past 26 years (excluding Covid). Recently Bloc Digital has started more outbound business development for the first time, reaching out to new companies. This is a new function for them and the team are learning how best – and how not to – do this.
- Bloc Digital has been investing in creating three SaaS (software as a service) products to complement its existing service offerings. These products are about to be launched, however the business has no experience of product selling, so again this will be a steep learning curve, and possibly a barrier to growth if they don’t get it right.
- Innovate UK internationalisation support enabled the business to visit the US market, gain knowledge, market information and business leads. This activity led to the opening of two US offices in Ohio and Kansas. Following further international support from Innovate UK the business also has plans to open an office in Singapore in 2027. A huge opportunity for business growth in the Asian Market.
Solution – Support Given
Prior to East Midlands Chamber’s support, the business was working for several years with Innovate UK Business Growth and received innovation funding and internationalisation support to help the growth strategy from Paul Humphreys and Neil McCluskey.
Bloc Digital has also been supported by Chamber Business Adviser, Lisa Baggott and the EMCCA Export Accelerator project. Lisa conducted a business diagnostic, which highlighted its growth ambitions. This included the desire to explore the US space technology sector and the California/West Coast space and aerospace ecosystems, which are new markets for the business.
With guidance from Lisa on the grant application, Bloc Digital successfully secured funding to attend the Space Tech Expo USA 2026 in Anaheim, California. This enabled the business to meet potential customers, partners, supplies and sector contacts. It also allowed the business to test and refine its proposition directly with relevant US organisations.
As a Chamber member and neighbour to East Midlands Chamber, located in the Enterprise Centre in Derby, Bloc Digital have independently supported East Midlands Manufacturing Network (EMMN) members. In January 2026, at the request of Derby members, the business shared an inspiring peer presentation on their growth journey and gave EMMN members the opportunity to go behind the scenes and see how they are helping manufacturers and inspiring the industry with digitalisation.
The business has also won a number of awards in recent years including the Commitment to People Development at the Derbyshire Business Awards 2026.
Impact - The Difference it’s Made
Accelerator support has enabled Bloc Digital to research demand and understand customer requirements and assess routes to a new market in the US.
Director and founder Keith Cox commented: “As a result of the support we expect to be able to grow our client base, both here in the UK and internationally. This will enable us to grow the business and achieve the next round of investment into Bloc which will see us have accelerated growth and employ new staff.”
The event was only a few weeks ago, so the business is busy working on leads to move across to meetings. However, they’ve already had four new requests, two of which are for its new marketing product, even though it’s at the pre-launch stage.
Keith adds: “Already we are seeing a great ROI for this trip, just a week after going, which is very encouraging.”
“This has been an amazing opportunity for Bloc Digital. We are already seeing benefits from this support.”
- Keith Cox, Director & Founder
