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Our 2025 Impact Report sets out the impact of the British Business Bank’s activity on smaller businesses across the UK’s Nations and regions.
What we do
The British Business Bank is the UK Government’s economic development bank. Our mission is to drive sustainable economic growth by ensuring the UK’s most promising businesses can access the capital they need to start-up and grow in the UK, creating jobs and prosperity for people across the country.
The Bank has a commercial mindset that delivers value for taxpayers, with an expectation to generate higher returns than the government’s cost of borrowing over time. It does this while unlocking private capital, addressing gaps in the smaller business finance market.
The loan gave us confidence to take more risks and develop our franchising model. Franchising has completely changed the business — it’s a genuinely scalable model now.
- Nigel Apperley Founder and CEO, Trustist, Growth Guarantee Scheme
Driving economic growth
We design, deliver, and manage a range of products through over 200 delivery partners, helping to increase both the supply and diversity of finance available to smaller businesses.
We also work to raise awareness of these options, helping entrepreneurs across the UK become more informed and able to access the right finance to realise their ambitions.
Through our Investment business, we crowd in private capital into venture and growth markets that fuel innovative companies’ growth. Through our Banking business, we encourage lending to businesses through start up loans for new entrepreneurs and by using funding and guarantees to support a range of finance providers.
Today, the British Business Bank is
The largest investor in UK venture and venture growth capital funds Read footnote text 1
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Largest LP investor in UK venture capital via Small Business Equity Tracker 2024, from BBB analysis of Pitchbook data for UK VC funds between 2017 and 2023, based on the amount of capital committed and the number of commitments made to funds.
The most active late-stage investor in UK deep tech and life sciences
A backer of one in four UK university spinouts
Continuing to support small businesses
£39bn of growth capital and lending to reach smaller UK businesses
Over our first decade, the Bank helped more than £32bn of growth capital and lending to reach smaller UK businesses. In 2024/25 we added to this total with £6.8bn of incremental finance reaching smaller businesses. This is more than double the annual average flow over our first ten years and brings the total to just under £39bn.
Following the Spending Review, the Bank has secured significant new capital and the flexibility to respond more dynamically to market opportunities, including providing the financial firepower to underpin the Government’s Industrial Strategy.
A new Five-Year Strategic Plan will shortly be published, setting out how this capital will be deployed to further scale our impact.