Select audience

Choose the option that best describes your role.

Search British Business Bank
Popular Search placeholder

British Business Bank makes $100m cornerstone commitment to M&G Catalyst Growth Equity Fund

Press release 11 November 2026

The British Business Bank has made a $100m cornerstone commitment to the M&G Catalyst Growth Equity Fund as part of a $900m first close alongside major institutional investors, including Mubadala Capital and M&G's £138bn With-Profits Fund. The commitment will help expand the availability of long-term growth capital for innovative, technology-led UK businesses.

Established in 2021, the Catalyst team has deployed more than $1.3bn across more than 30 companies globally. The new Fund focuses on impact themes spanning climate, health, financial inclusion and infrastructure, and expects to invest around 20% of its capital into British companies, supporting the UK’s innovation economy and the Government’s Industrial Strategy. 

The commitment builds on the Bank's growing collaboration with M&G, which made a commitment to the British Growth Partnership Fund I, a purpose-built fund for institutional investors to access venture capital by leveraging the Bank’s scale, networks, and track record.

Through its Catalyst team, M&G has an established track record of backing innovative UK businesses and has invested in four UK businesses. The Bank and M&G have coinvested three times, including into Pragmatic, the UK semiconductor manufacturer, and Nuclera, the Cambridge University spinout behind the eProtein Discovery platform.

Most recently, the British Business Bank and M&G Catalyst both participated in PhysicsX's Series C financing round, an AI unicorn that helps accelerate engineering innovation across sectors including aerospace, automotive and advanced manufacturing. 

Over the past five years, the Catalyst team has built relationships across the UK innovation ecosystem, including with Northern Gritstone, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Phoenix Court, all strategic partners of the British Business Bank. These relationships help identify fast-growing UK companies and support founders as they scale.

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

The Mansion House agenda is building momentum as more institutional investors recognise the long-term opportunity in UK venture capital and the innovation economy. M&G has shown real leadership in building the expertise and infrastructure needed to invest in UK growth businesses at scale. We hope it encourages more institutional investors to explore the long-term value of the UK’s innovation economy. Through initiatives like Venture Link and the British Growth Partnership, we’re helping pension funds access venture capital and unlock more long-term investment into UK growth.

Robert Greenwood, Senior Investment Director at British Business Bank, said:

This commitment expands our work with one of the UK’s largest institutional investors and supports the continued expansion of the UK’s growth capital ecosystem. The UK requires deeper pools of late-stage capital, and M&G's Catalyst Fund will help more innovative businesses access the funding they need to scale, while adding a major UK institutional investor to their cap table.

Niranjan Sirdeshpande, Head of Catalyst at M&G Investments, said:

The challenge facing many innovative businesses is not a lack of ambition or opportunity, but access to long-term capital. Catalyst is designed to address that gap, backing technology-led companies with the potential to compete and win on a global stage. We are seeing exciting opportunities to support exceptional founders as they build the next generation of industry-leading companies, while delivering attractive long-term returns and meaningful impact.

Further Information

If you are a journalist and have a media enquiry, please contact [email protected].

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 transaction described above does not constitute or imply any endorsement, warranty or recommendation by the UK government, the British Business Bank plc, its subsidiaries or any other party in respect of M&G Investments or its products or services.

About M&G Investments

M&G Investments is part of M&G plc, a savings and investments company with £378 billion of assets under management (as at 30 June 2026). M&G plc has customers in the UK, Europe, the Americas and Asia, including individual savers and investors, life insurance policy holders and pension scheme members.

For nearly nine decades M&G Investments has been helping its customers to prosper by putting investments to work, which in turn creates jobs, homes and vital infrastructure in the real economy. Its investment solutions span equities, fixed income, multi asset, cash, private debt, infrastructure and real estate.

M&G plc recognises the importance of responsible investing, is a signatory (both as an asset manager and owner) to the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), and is targeting net zero emissions by 2050, across our investment portfolios and operations. For more information, please visit mandg.com.

Quick links

Latest news