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British Business Bank makes second investment through the Regional Angels Programme’s new co-investment strategy to Portal Biotech

Press release 30 June 2025

The British Business Bank has made a second investment under its new co-investment strategy as part of its £350m Regional Angels Programme into Portal Biotech, a developer of a real-time, single-molecule protein sequencing technology. The company has raised £27 million ($37m) in an oversubscribed round led by Earlybird and NATO Innovation Fund.

Built on foundational research, Portal Biotech’s platform enables single-molecule characterisation of intact full-length proteins on accessible benchtop instruments. Portal delivers results up to 100x faster, uncovering disease-linked protein modification that conventional methods miss. 

With proteins making up 95% of FDA-approve drug targets, this leap in access and speed could reshape drug discovery and precision medicine. 

This £3m ($3.8m) investment to Portal Biotech demonstrates the Regional Angels Programme's commitment to supporting early-stage companies across the UK, providing additional funding needed to drive growth and innovation. 

The Regional Angels Programme’s new co-investment strategy is expected to invest an average of £3m in follow-on funding to c.4-5 top-performing companies from within the Regional Angels Programme’s existing portfolio each year. The Programme typically invests alongside partners at the seed stage but has also invested in later stage rounds. The Bank recently announced the first direct investment into Space Forge, a company that utilises the space environment to manufacture advanced semiconductor materials for critical infrastructure in May 2025, with a £2m investment.  

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

This investment into Portal Biotech under the new co-investment strategy demonstrates the Regional Angels Programme’s mission to fund and support category-defining businesses with the potential to be UK leaders and stimulate growth across the UK’s economy. The UK’s life sciences sector is world-leading, providing a great launch-pad for Portal Biotech to continue its development. The company was backed by one of our fund partners, SCVC, in 2021 and 2022 and we have been incredibly impressed with the scale of progress made by the Portal team during these formative 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 over £17.4bn 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 Business Guidance 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.

The Regional Angels Programme is operated by British Business Investments Ltd, a wholly owned commercial subsidiary of British Business Bank plc. British Business Investments Ltd is registered in England and Wales with company number 09091930, and registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. 
The transaction described above does not constitute or imply any endorsement, warranty or recommendation by the UK government, British Business Bank plc or its subsidiaries or any other party in respect of Portal Biotech or its products or services.

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