The Secretary of State for the Department for Business and Trade has announced that £6.6bn of new capital is being committed by the British Business Bank to back UK innovation and entrepreneurs.
A new £4bn initiative, British Business Bank Industrial Strategy Growth Capital, will be invested through the bank’s existing capabilities across eight growth-driving sectors.
The sectors – advanced manufacturing, clean energy industries, creative industries, defence, digital & technologies, financial services, life sciences and professional & business services – are expected to bring in another £12bn of private capital.
As part of the Spending Review settlement, the organisation will also commit £2.6bn of capital to support entrepreneurs to access funds in an attempt to drive the growth of smaller businesses across the UK.
This follows the recent announcement at the Spending Review of the increase in the British Business Bank’s total financial capacity to £25.6bn, which will enable a two-thirds increase in investments to around £2.5bn each year.
“We welcome today’s announcement by the Secretary of State to deliver British Business Bank Industrial Strategy Growth Capital, as well as the reforms to the Bank’s governance and financial framework,” said Louis Taylor, CEO, British Business Bank.
“Using our market expertise and reach, we have a critical role to play in supporting smaller businesses in the eight growth-driving sectors to grow and stay in the UK.
“To deliver the government’s growth mission it is also critical that our most promising entrepreneurs can access the finance they need to grow their businesses, no matter what their background or where they are located across the nations and regions of the UK.
“This is a strong endorsement of the bank’s 10-year track record, market access and capabilities, including our position as the largest investor in UK venture and venture growth capital funds and the most active late-stage investor in UK life sciences and deeptech.”
The British Business Bank Industrial Strategy Growth Capital will attempt to tackle the scale-up financing gap for priority sectors by investing greater amounts in companies through direct investments.
It is also set to build a long-term funding ecosystem, with the bank doubling its support for emerging fund managers, as well as working to actively develop new products and solutions to support priority sectors.
These measures are expected to deliver around £30bn of additional gross value add (GVA) to the UK economy through incremental company growth over the life of the investments.