Introduction

The British Business Bank, established in 2014, is the UK Government's economic development bank. The Bank has the mission to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK, and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses.

The availability of capital to smaller businesses drives economic growth because it enables business investment, innovation, and expansion, leading to increased productivity, job creation, and overall economic development.

We design, deliver and manage access to finance programmes for smaller businesses across the UK that address gaps in the market. As well as increasing the supply and diversity of finance, we raise awareness of the finance options available to smaller businesses but they don’t obtain finance directly from us, instead we work through more than 200 delivery partners:

• To help get new smaller businesses off the ground, providing start-up finance and mentoring to help them succeed 
• To help smaller businesses thrive, unlocking lending from banks and alternative finance providers, to help them grow, create new jobs and improve productivity 
• To help the UK’s most innovative companies get the capital they need to be able to scale up and stay in the UK, making investments through angels, venture and venture growth capital funds and companies across R&D intensive industries such as deeptech and life sciences. 

The Bank is the largest domestic investor in UK venture and venture growth funds. The British Business Bank’s role is catalytic to UK private markets over time and encourages growth companies to stay in the UK as they scale, since companies with material UK ownership are more likely to stay in the UK. 

The Bank deployed £3.5bn of public funding into UK smaller businesses in 2023.