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British Business Bank makes first investment through the Regional Angels Programme’s co-investment platform alongside Games Angels.

Press release 30 July 2025

The British Business Bank has made its first investment through the Regional Angels Programme new co-investment platform.

JECO, an automated toolset provider, designed specifically for video games software developers and digital creatives looking to streamline their development processes and future-proof their products has secured $1.3m / £960,000 in growth funding. The deal was led by Games Angels, with British Business Bank participating in the round.

JECO is co-founded by a Forbes 30Under30 female entrepreneur alongside an established industry professional with more than 25 years in the gaming and technology. The business is on a mission to transform how developers create software and how users treat their hardware.

The Regional Angels Programme, launched in 2019 with the objective of addressing regional imbalances in access to early-stage equity finance, targets angel networks and other early-stage investors outside of London. This first investment under the programme’s £7m platform (facilitated by Haatch Ventures), supports this mission, enhancing access to capital for early-stage businesses across diverse sectors.

Mark Barry, Senior Investment Director at British Business Bank, said:

We are delighted to make this first co-investment with the Games Angels as part of the Regional Angels Programme. The investment into JECO aligns with our programme goals to strengthen the UK’s regional economy and, leverage investment potential into innovating entrepreneurs in key sectors.

CEO and Co-Founder Emily Bailey said:

JECO was born out of the belief that if developers are given frictionless ways to improve and enhance their development processes, they can find quicker, cost effective routes to market, and can also start to play an important role in addressing wider environmental issues that may impact our industry in the future. Simon and I are incredibly grateful to all our investors for supporting us in our mission; to support developers in making positive behavioural changes through the power of technology.

Nick Button-Brown, Lead Investor, former Chair of the BAFTA Games Committee, and now Founder at Games Angels said:

Software development is fundamentally flawed. It’s built fast and on tight budgets, where performance is an afterthought, and is costly and time-consuming to fix. I thought Co-founders Emily and Simon were building an incredibly strong team around an idea that addresses this, and simply makes so much sense, so it was a fairly easy choice to invest. What they have already achieved is phenomenal and I think JECO will have a great impact over the next few years

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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 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. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

The British Business Bank’s core programmes support £23bn 1  of finance to almost 64,000 2  smaller businesses.

As well as increasing the supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of finance options available to smaller businesses. The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to businesses about finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success. 

The British Business Bank is also responsible for administering the government’s three Coronavirus loan schemes and its Future Fund, together responsible for delivering £80.4bn in finance to 1.67m businesses. These schemes are now closed to new applications.

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.

About JECO

Co-founded by Emily Bailey (Code Coven CIC, Antler Studios Co-Founder & board member, Forbes 30 Under 30, BAFTA Member) and Simon Barratt (Cooperative Innovations CEO & Co-Founder, Ukie Trade Association board member, BAFTA Member), JECO is an industry first; enabling developers to increase performance whilst reducing production costs, timelines, and carbon consumption by adopting an automated suite of optimization tools for all software, on any device.

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