Local businesses bloom with City of Melbourne grants

Two small businesses with big ambitions are among the latest recipients of the City of Melbourne’s Small Business Grants, joining 31 winners set to share in $700,000 of council support to help them expand and thrive.

Urban Antidote, a modern floral design studio founded by Kensington local Anastasia Botica, is using its $20,000 grant to transform the business from a series of pop-up workshops and a home studio into a dedicated headquarters in Carlton. Meanwhile, Amplify Bookstore, West Melbourne’s proudly anti-racist social enterprise and bookstore on Peel Street, will use its grant to equip and expand its first bricks-and-mortar shop, supporting its mission to promote authors of colour.

The Small Business Grants program is the City of Melbourne’s way of backing the city’s diverse and creative economy, encouraging local entrepreneurship and helping businesses with a unique character grow and support local jobs.

For Urban Antidote's Anastasia, the grant is a major step in realising a vision she’s been nurturing since launching her business during the pandemic. Specialising in modern floral design for weddings, events and workshops, Urban Antidote has built a reputation for offering contemporary styles often hard to find locally.

But until now, Anastasia’s workshops have been run out of borrowed spaces, pop-ups in Collingwood and brand partnerships on-site. The grant will help her finally create a purpose-built studio space in Carlton to host regular workshops for everyone from beginners to aspiring professional florists.

“It’s really going to help push me to get the studio up and running,” Anastasia told North West City News. “These big moves are so risky for a small business. I can cover the rent, but the grant will pay for everything needed to fit out the space – the workbenches, equipment, signage – it takes a lot of pressure off.”

For Anastasia, education is personal. When she wanted to learn modern floristry herself, she struggled to find it in Melbourne. In 2020, she applied for a scholarship at McQueens Flowers in London and, after being named a finalist, studied there in 2022. That experience inspired her to build something similar locally.

I want to offer something like that here in Melbourne because I felt like I had to go to London to find it,” she said. “There’s no-one really teaching modern floristry here in the City of Melbourne. It’s exciting and I feel so lucky to be able to do it here.

With the new studio, she hopes to not only expand Urban Antidote’s event work but create an education hub with classes that bring people together to learn and share her passion for bold, modern floral design.

Meanwhile, Amplify Bookstore on Peel St is also looking to scale up with help from its City of Melbourne grant. Featured in the June edition of North West City News as part of its North & West Melbourne Precinct Association Trader Profile series, Amplify is the creation of Xuan and Marina, who launched the business during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

Starting as an online store, Amplify is dedicated to selling books by authors of colour, promoting diverse voices often underrepresented in publishing. Since opening their first physical store next to the Queen Victoria Market in late 2024, they’ve built a welcoming space for community, conversation, and discovery.

The City of Melbourne grant will help Amplify invest in essential furniture, point-of-sale equipment and stationery to keep pace with growth and improve the in-store experience. Marina said the support would be critical in meeting demand as more Melburnians discover the bookstore’s carefully curated offering.

“We’ve grown quite drastically since we opened last November,” she said. “The grant will help us keep up and continue expanding. It’s really good to see the city affirm and invest in the work we do.”

Amplify’s impact is about more than selling books. From curated book boxes that rotate through different global regions, to an upstairs reading room and gallery space for local artists, the shop is a hub for connection and understanding. They even run monthly book clubs to help people discover new authors and perspectives. •