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British Business Bank backs new £150m Northern scale-up fund

Press release 07 September 2026

  • British Business Bank will commit up to £150m to a new scale up fund across the North of England
  • Fund will deliver larger scale investments between £5m and £15m, to complement the Bank’s existing Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II
  • Intended fund to attract additional private capital backing the most innovative high-growth northern firms

Today, the British Business Bank announces it will commit up to £150m capital to support a fund aimed at high-growth businesses across the North of England.

The proposed Northern scale-up fund will provide larger scale investment to innovative scale-up businesses seeking capital to accelerate their growth and expansion. The fund is expected to back university spinouts and other innovative, high-growth companies from Liverpool to Manchester, Bradford and Leeds to Sheffield, and York to Hull and Newcastle. 

It is expected to make investments of between £5m and £15m, complementing the Bank’s existing programmes in the region, including the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II and Regional Angels Programme. 

The fund’s investment approach will reflect the sector strengths, including creative industries, clean energy and space and technology within the geography it covers, supporting ambitious businesses with the potential to scale and contribute to regional growth.

The announcement comes in the same week the Bank brings together regional stakeholders in Brighton to launch the £210m South East Investment Fund, underlining its wider commitment to increasing access to finance for businesses across the UK.

In his speech on 7 September, Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey is expected to say:

Today I can announce a new £150m allocation from the British Business Bank to lever in more capital behind the most innovative and fast-growing firms in the North of England.

Leandros Kalisperas, Chief Investment Officer, British Business Bank said:

This new Northern scale-up fund reflects the Bank’s commitment to addressing regional equity gaps and helping ambitious, innovative businesses in the North of England to have the same opportunity to access the capital they need to grow and thrive as other parts of the UK.

The proposed fund would provide an important new source of scale-up capital building on the success of our Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II, which continues to deliver support to smaller businesses of up to £5m of capital.

Further Information

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Notes to editors

About the British Business Bank

The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to drive economic growth by helping smaller businesses get the finance they need to start, scale and stay in the UK. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

In 2025/26 1 , the Bank supported UK smaller businesses to access £9.4bn of finance, made up of £1.3bn of public funding, £4.3bn of private capital crowded in by the Bank and £3.7bn of lending the Bank guaranteed. The funding benefited 38,000 UK businesses, including around 30,000 businesses the Bank had not previously helped to fund.

British Business Bank plc is a public limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. It is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government. British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. With the exception of BBB Investment Services Limited they are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority or the Financial Conduct Authority. BBB Investment Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at british-business-bank.co.uk.

The British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds (ECFs) are administered by British Business Finance Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Business Bank plc. The Funds are managed by experienced managers from a variety of backgrounds – including teams from the venture capital industry as well as entrepreneurs with a history of success in building early-stage UK companies.

ECFs are commercially focused funds that bring together private and public money to make equity investments in high growth businesses. The Bank’s rolling investment programme of commitments to new ECFs is a competitive process, with typically two to three investments made per year. The Zinc Science-for-Impact Fund is the 55th ECF in the programme.