Impact for scaleups
675+
Companies backed
53%
Investment outside of London
£1.83bn
Total investment capacity of the programme
Key sectors
The British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds (ECF) programme combines private and public money to make equity investments in high growth businesses. It is designed to increase the supply of equity to UK growth companies and to lower the barriers to entry for fund managers looking to operate in the venture capital market. It is working with 33 Fund partners across the UK.
As at March 2022, 39 ECFs have been launched since their inception in 2006, supporting more than 675 innovative growing businesses across a range of sectors. The top five sectors supported by ECFs are SaaS, AI, industrials, TMT (technology media and telecommunications), and healthcare – 53% of the investments are outside of London.
The British Business Bank invests alongside VC funds on terms that improve the outcome for private investors when those funds are successful. The ECF programme has helped 30 fund managers to raise their first institutional fund and 89% of the fund managers they have invested in prior to 2016 have already gone to raise a further fund. The average size of an ECF has increased from £20m to closer to £60m during the lifetime of the programme.
Since inception to March 2022, the ECF programme has committed £1.06bn of capital, which has been matched by £0.77bn of private sector capital bringing the total committed to ECFs to £1.83bn. The bank operates a rolling investment programme for commitments to new ECFs and welcomes new applications from UK fund managers.
In March 2022, the Enterprise Capital Funds programme corner-stoned the raise of its 39th ECF, Zinc II, a venture builder focused on entrepreneurs that are solving societal problems.
The current fund managers include: Active Partners, Ada Ventures, Amadeus Capital Partners, Catapult Ventures, Dawn Capital, Edge Investment, Eka Ventures, Entrepreneur First, Episode 1, Epidarex Capital, Foresight Group, Form Ventures, Imbiba, IQ Capital, Jam Jar Investments, Longwall Ventures, Notion Capital, Panoramic Growth Equity, Passion Capital, Pentech, Redrice, Seraphim Capital, Superseed Ventures, Sure Valley Ventures, Sussex Place Ventures, VGC Partners, Zinc VC.
British Business Bank: Enterprise Capital Fund [2022] website