The British Business Bank has invested more than £600 million into the UK’s fastest-growing science and technology scaleups, increasing its direct equity portfolio to more than 50 high-growth companies.
The Bank has more than doubled its direct equity investments since October 2025, investing more in the last nine months than in the previous four years.
The Bank has ramped up the pace and scale of its direct equity investing activity to tackle longstanding gaps in the UK late-stage capital market and support high growth companies to scale up and stay in the UK.
Since its first direct equity investment into Quantexa in 2020, the Bank has built a portfolio spanning life sciences, deeptech, including advanced manufacturing, clean energy and defence, AI and FinTech, becoming one of the UK’s most active late-stage investors in key sectors shaping the UK’s future.
The Bank completed 18 new investments plus 18 follow-on investments in FY25/26, compared to 12 investments the year before. Total investments were up 2.5x from £75m to £188m year-on-year, and are expected to scale to over £400m this year.
“Supporting UK scaleups is a national economic imperative,” said v. “The UK excels at creating businesses, but our domestic capital base has yet to match our scientific excellence.
“Our activity should be interpreted as a clear signal to UK institutional capital that we want them to join us in backing UK scale ups. We now have fuel in the tank and intend to put UK innovation in fifth gear.”
Charlotte Lawrence, managing director and head of direct equity at British Business Bank, said: “We are accelerating our ambitions to match the calibre of UK innovation.
“By investing £400m per year into the most exciting venture backed UK scale-ups across life sciences, deep tech, AI, and FinTech, we aim to act as an ecosystem multiplier and ensure the most innovative UK businesses have the capital and support to rapidly scale.”
Business Secretary Peter Kyle said: “We are ramping up the pace and scale of investment – backing the UK’s highest-growth scale ups at a level not seen before, through our modern Industrial Strategy.
“By more than doubling investment in just nine months, we’re giving firms the firepower they need to stay and scale here in the UK and drive the economy.”
The Bank’s Five-year Strategic Plan aims to deliver deeper pools of scale up funding by mobilising institutional capital at scale and supporting the launch of larger, growth stage funds.
The Bank’s investment business is expected to deploy around £2bn per year into the UK venture capital ecosystem with approximately 20% (£400m) allocated to direct equity activity. The strategy is expected to support 14-18 new investments per year, with initial cheque sizes typically ranging from £10m to £40m and long-term cumulative investments of up to £75m.