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Three UK pension funds invest into UK venture capital through British Business Bank

Press release 01 April 2026

  • British Growth Partnership Fund I achieves a first close of £200 million, with commitments from Aegon UK, Cushon Master Trust, M&G, and the British Business Bank
  • These are the first investments into UK venture capital by Aegon UK and NatWest Cushon
  • The first investment of the British Growth Partnership Fund I will be £8 million into Wayve, the UK autonomous driving company

British Growth Partnership Fund I has achieved a first close at £200 million, with commitments from UK pension funds Aegon UK, Cushon Master Trust (Cushon), M&G, and the British Business Bank. The close demonstrates progress in driving venture capital allocations from Mansion House Accord signatories.

This is the first time that the Bank has raised external capital from multiple investors and has secured commitments from three large UK DC schemes and Master Trusts. This is also the first time that Aegon UK and Cushon have invested in UK venture capital, bringing two of the UK’s pension funds into the asset class. The Bank has also partnered with Mobius, whose unit-linked structure has facilitated the Cushon investment.

All three pension funds now have access via the fund to the venture capital opportunities from the Bank’s pipeline and network of over 150 funds.

In addition, the British Growth Partnership Fund I will make its first investment of £8 million into autonomous driving company Wayve, contributing to the Bank’s £25 million investment announced in February. This investment demonstrates how pension fund capital is already being deployed into UK scale-ups and that the Bank can do this at speed through the British Growth Partnership.

British Growth Partnership Fund I is an investment vehicle designed to address structural barriers and help pension funds increase their allocations to UK venture capital.

The fund has a direct investing strategy, co-investing alongside the Bank’s network of fund managers. Investments by the fund are made on a fully commercial basis, independent of government. Utilising the Bank’s market access and leveraging its position as the most active late-stage investor into UK companies 1  and the largest investor in UK venture and venture growth capital funds, investments will comprise a range of promising high growth UK companies.

In May 2025, the Bank secured FCA regulatory approval for its third party arm, BBB Investment Services, which provides investment advice in respect of the Fund. The fund is supported by Langham Hall, which provides fund administration, AIFM and depositary services.

The Fund intends to complete a final close in due course and is continuing discussions with prospective investors. The Bank is also developing further products to support pension funds to access venture capital in a range of ways. 

The British Business Bank has also launched Venture Link, an online portal that provides direct sight of the Bank’s investments into venture and venture growth capital funds that remain open for investment, supporting institutional investors as they navigate these opportunities. 

Venture Link is an initiative to help pension funds to boost their investment capability, support them as they develop their strategy, reduce barriers to investment and help to unlock billions more in long-term investment for UK science, technology and innovation. 

Louis Taylor, CEO, British Business Bank, said:

  • 1

    Source: Bank analysis of Bank MI and Pitchbook data, 2022-2024, based on a ranking of most active investors in £30m+ UK VC rounds by number of deals

This is a defining moment for the Bank and is a major step forward in mobilising UK pension fund capital into venture. The UK has the world’s third largest venture capital market, yet pension fund capital has historically been deeply underrepresented. To maximise the value of great British innovation, we must bridge the gap between the UK’s large domestic savings pool and our fast-growing companies.

The Bank is stepping up to provide pension funds with routes into the market, whether that is with us through the British Growth Partnership or alongside us via Venture Link. The launch of these initiatives represents a key milestone in delivering the Mansion House reforms and will help pension funds to access outstanding new opportunities on their doorstep.

Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said:

Our pension savers want to back Britain and want their pensions to benefit from the growth in our world-class innovation economy. The British Growth Partnership is doing that, and helping Great British tech success stories like Wayve hold their own on the global stage. We are making it easier for businesses like Wayve to start, scale and stay in the UK.

Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, said:

Today marks a major step forward in Government backing the next generation of high growth companies. Through the British Growth Partnership, we’re unlocking much needed funding, to scale the most ambitious, and cutting-edge, innovators right across the UK – so they can grow faster here at home and compete globally.

Ian Connatty, Managing Partner, The British Growth Partnership, said:

Pension funds have long recognised the strength of UK venture capital, but structural barriers have limited their access to the market. By bringing together leading pension funds and deploying capital at speed, British Growth Partnership Fund I demonstrates how these barriers can be overcome and provides a blueprint for others to follow. We will be building on this momentum in the year ahead.

Lorna Blyth, Managing Director – Investment Proposition, Aegon UK said:

This investment marks an important step in the evolution of our largest workplace default fund, the Universal Balanced Collection. Our members now benefit from access to innovative UK venture capital assets, including later-stage technology and life sciences, that have typically been out of reach for DC pension savers. As the cornerstone investor in the British Growth Partnership Fund I, we’re demonstrating our cutting-edge capabilities while delivering value for money and supporting better long-term outcomes for our members.

Alex Seddon, Head of Impact and Private Equity, M&G Investments, said:

This is a significant step forward in connecting UK pension savings with the businesses driving future growth. As a long term investor with more than £100 billion already deployed across the UK economy, initiatives like the British Growth Partnership are critical to unlocking and supporting the next phase of innovation, productivity and jobs across the UK. Investing in Wayve highlights the kind of high-growth British companies this initiative is designed to back - and the role patient capital can play in helping them to scale.

Veronica Humble, Chief Investment Officer, NatWest Cushon said:

We’re delighted to be one of the initial investors in the British Growth Partnership Fund I. We’ve been working with the British Business Bank for a while to get to this point and so it’s great to be part of this important milestone. As a signatory to both the Mansion House Compact and the Accord, we’re committed to directing investment into innovative, high-growth UK businesses to drive long-term returns for our customers, and the British Growth Partnership is vital to unlocking these investment opportunities.

Alex Kendall, Co-Founder and CEO of Wayve, said:

Unlocking pension capital into high-growth technology companies is critical if the UK wants to lead in AI. This investment shows how long-term capital can support long-term innovation, helping companies like Wayve scale embodied AI globally while delivering meaningful economic and societal impact.

Zoe Alexander, Executive Director of Policy and Advocacy at Pensions UK, said:

The appetite for the British Growth Partnership Fund demonstrates clearly that pension funds are making real progress in delivering on the commitments they set out in the Mansion House Accord, and that the mechanisms needed to invest in high growth UK companies are beginning to come into place. By starting to overcome the long standing structural barriers to venture capital investment, initiatives like the British Growth Partnership are helping pension schemes to access attractive long term opportunities while supporting innovative UK businesses to scale. That is good for savers, good for the economy and exactly the kind of momentum the Accord was designed to create.

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. In doing so, we help capture the economic value of innovation for the UK and create jobs and prosperity for people across the country.

The British Business Bank’s core programmes support £23bn 2  of finance to almost 64,000 3  smaller businesses.

British Business Bank plc, registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ, a development bank wholly owned by HM Government. It 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.  

BBB Investment Services Limited, registered in England and Wales, registration number 15662260, registered office Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield S1 2GQ. A wholly owned commercial subsidiary of British Business Bank plc. It is not a banking institution and does not operate as such. BBB Investment Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. 

About Aegon UK

In the UK, Aegon offers pension and investment solutions to over 3.5 million customers, supported by over 3,000 employees. Figures are correct as of 31/12/2024. 

Learn more at aegon.co.uk/about-us.

Aegon UK is currently part of the wider Aegon Group, an international financial services holding company. Aegon’s ambition is to build leading businesses that offer their customers investment, protection and retirement solutions. Aegon’s portfolio of businesses includes fully-owned businesses in the United States and United Kingdom, and a global asset manager. Aegon also creates value by combining its international expertise with strong local partners via insurance joint ventures in Spain & Portugal, China and Brazil, and via asset management partnerships in France and China. In addition, Aegon owns a Bermuda-based life insurer and generates value via a strategic shareholding in a market-leading Dutch insurance and pensions company.

Aegon’s purpose of helping people live their best lives runs through all its activities. As a leading global investor and employer, Aegon seeks to have a positive impact by addressing critical environmental and societal issues, with a focus on climate change and inclusion & diversity. Aegon is currently headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands, and listed on Euronext Amsterdam and the New York Stock Exchange.

More information can be found at aegon.com/about.

About NatWest Cushon

Cushon is a UK-based workplace pensions and savings provider dedicated to helping people build a better financial future through smart, engaging technology. Cushon delivers intuitive, digital-first pension and savings solutions through the workplace, integrating seamlessly with payroll and benefits platforms.

Nearly 20,000 employers and 755,000 savers currently use Cushon, with £4.2 billion assets under management. By offering a straightforward way to save into pensions, ISAs and other products directly from pay, Cushon helps employers enhance the financial wellbeing of their workforce.

For more information, please visit cushon.co.uk.

About M&G

M&G Investments is part of M&G plc, a savings and investments company with £375.9 billion of assets under management (as at 31 December 2025). 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.

About Wayve

Founded in 2017, Wayve is a UK self-driving company pioneering embodied AI for autonomous driving. The company develops end-to-end AI software that enables vehicles to learn, perceive, understand, and navigate complex real-world environments.

Wayve's AV2.0 approach centers on a unified foundation model trained on large-scale, globally diverse data. Unlike traditional rule-based and map-dependent systems, Wayve's AI Driver is designed to generalize across markets and vehicle platforms without location-specific engineering.

Technology and Platform

Wayve builds and licenses its AI Driver as a vehicle-agnostic software platform that runs entirely on onboard vehicle compute and native sensors.

The same foundation model powers capabilities spanning from L2+ advanced driver assistance through L3 “eyes-off” and L4 driverless applications. Automakers can customize and continuously improve their driving models using Wayve's toolchains for fleet learning, data infrastructure, evaluation and simulation.

AI-500 Roadshow and Zero-shot performance

In 2025, Wayve conducted its AI-500 Roadshow, becoming the first and only AV company to test a single global AI Driver model across more than 500 cities in Europe, North America and Japan.

In machine learning, “zero-shot” refers to a model performing a task in a new domain without being retrained or fine-tuned on data from that specific domain. Using this definition, Wayve deployed its AI Driver zero-shot across all cities visited, with no city-specific fine-tuning prior to testing.

The AI Driver is distilled from Wayve’s foundation model, trained on large-scale, globally diverse driving data. In 219 cities, the system had no prior local data. In 260 cities, it had fewer than 10 kilometres of local driving data, and in a further 81 cities, less than 100 kilometres.

Commercial Deployment

In 2025, Wayve signed a definitive production partnership with Nissan Motor Co. to integrate its AI Driver into Nissan’s next-generation ProPILOT driver-assistance systems, with the first mass-produced vehicles expected to launch in Japan and other global markets from fiscal year 2027.

In 2025, Wayve and Uber announced plans to launch public robotaxi trials starting in London in 2026.

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