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British Business Bank

British Business Bank

Government

The British Business Bank is the UK government economic development bank focused on improving access to finance for smaller businesses.

Portfolio

16

companies


Portfolio companies

Vigilant AI.ai

Vigilant AI.ai

Vigilant AI.ai builds compliant artificial intelligence teammates for regulated businesses.

CH

Cyted Health

Cyted Health develops gastrointestinal molecular diagnostics for early esophageal disease detection.

JECO

JECO

JECO offers an automated toolset for video game developers to streamline software production and reduce carbon consumption.

PB

Portal Biotech

Portal Biotech delivers single-molecule protein sequencing technology to transform proteomics and drug discovery.

AD

AMPLY Discovery

AMPLY Discovery builds artificial intelligence driven platforms to discover novel medicines for aggressive cancers and drug resistant pathogens.

Ryft

Ryft

Ryft provides an omnichannel payment platform that unifies online and in-person transactions.

T

Triyit

Triyit operates a marketing technology platform connecting brands with target consumers through performance sampling.

True Position Robotics

True Position Robotics

True Position Robotics develops automated assembly systems for aircraft manufacturing.

B

Baanx

Baanx develops cryptocurrency payment solutions and non-custodial on-chain products.

C

Cytomos

Cytomos develops a proprietary technology platform for real-time cell analysis in the biopharma industry.

e

e-bate

Automating complex rebate and price incentive schemes for companies.

HalalBooking

HalalBooking

HalalBooking provides an online travel booking platform tailored for halal-conscious consumers.

QuantuMDx Group

QuantuMDx Group

QuantuMDx Group develops point-of-care molecular diagnostic systems.

S

Sweep

Sweep provides automated expense and travel management software for small and medium sized businesses.

ML

Machine Labs

Machine Labs provides an automated e-commerce marketing platform for online stores.

RS

Recruitment Smart

Recruitment Smart builds artificial intelligence software for enterprise talent acquisition.


Team

Grant Peggie

Grant Peggie

Grant brings venture capital and public sector funding experience from roles at the British Business Bank, FW Capital, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

LinkedIn
Sue Barnard

Sue Barnard

Senior Investment Manager

Sue brings regional investment and business support experience from roles at the British Business Bank, Business Growth Hub, and the North West Development Agency.

LinkedIn
MW

Mark Wilcockson

Senior Investment Manager

Mark brings investment and regional fund experience from his time as a senior manager at the British Business Bank. He previously held roles focusing on the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and NHS England.

LinkedIn
Sean Hutchinson

Sean Hutchinson

Sean brings investment and financial institution experience from roles at the British Business Bank, Finance Yorkshire, and the South Yorkshire Investment Fund.

LinkedIn
KC

Ken Cooper

Managing Director, Venture Solutions

Lewis Stringer

Lewis Stringer

Senior Manager

Lewis brings regional funding experience from roles at the British Business Bank, Nottingham City Council, and Capital for Enterprise.

LinkedIn
RC

Ryan Cartwright

senior manager

Ryan brings investment and banking experience from roles at Frontier Development Capital, The FSE Group, and the British Business Bank.

LinkedIn
ME

Melanie Ellyard

TS

Tracy Sherratt

Senior Manager UK Network

KS

Keira Shepperson

Director

DS

Debbie Sorby

Senior Manager

SN

Sarah Newbould

Senior Investment Manager

SC

Simon Cunnington

Director

MS

Mark Sterritt

Director, Nations and Regions Funds

PJ

Paul Jones

Senior Investment Manager

LU

Lizzy Upton

Senior Investment Manager

DT

Dave Tindall

Senior Investment Manager

CC

Carmine Circelli

Director, Life Sciences

DT

David Tindall

Senior Investment Manager


Recent investments

Pre-Seed
£585K

Haatch led the pre-seed round, which includes contributions from the British Business Bank and the East Midlands Combined County Authority.

"As a trusted advisor to financial services boards, I kept seeing the same pattern: teams got excited about the potential of generative AI but then hit a wall when asked about governance and compliance. We founded Vigilant AI.ai because the toolset to answer those questions simply didn’t exist. Our platform enables people in the business to onboard AI Teammates where work happens whilst real-time guardrails and audit logs protect and govern. Customers gain AI productivity at speed, with regulatory compliant trust."
— Mark Wood, Co-founder and CTO
Series B
£33.0M

The financing round was led by EQT Life Sciences alongside co-leads Advent Life Sciences and British Business Bank.

"This Series B financing marks a defining moment for Cyted as we continue to deepen our commitment to detecting esophageal diseases earlier. This investment will help us consolidate our leading position in the market by expanding our US presence and adding new life-saving innovations to our advanced diagnostics portfolio."
— Marcel Gehrung, CEO and Co-founder
Pre-Seed
£960K

The pre-seed round was led by the British Business Bank and the Games Angels to advance product development and drive commercial expansion.

"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. I am 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."
— Emily Bailey, CEO and Co-Founder
Series A
£25.5M

The financing will be used to expand technical teams and accelerate the commercialisation of its proteomics platform.

"Portal Biotech’s technology offers unprecedented capabilities in protein identification and characterisation, providing unmatched detail on protein structure and modifications at the single-molecule level on accessible desktop instruments that bring this state-of-the-art characterisation to any lab. These powerful advances are essential for accelerating drug discovery and enhancing diagnostic precision, positioning Portal Biotech as the frontrunner in the race to unlock the full potential of protein sequencing."
— Andy Heron, Co-founder and CEO
Seed
£1.3M

Twin Path Ventures led the seed financing for the Belfast biotechnology firm to accelerate its preclinical discovery programmes.

"Ten years ago, I began combining financial modeling expertise with computational biology to create a drug discovery platform. Evolution has spent billions of years perfecting natural defense mechanisms, and now we’re using AI to unlock this wisdom. This isn’t just professional for me; my father died from a drug-resistant infection our healthcare system couldn’t treat. At Queen’s, I built AMPLY to tackle deadly diseases differently, creating technology that will save lives when current treatments fail."
— Ben Thomas, CEO and Chief Architect
Series A
£5.7M

The Series A round was led by EdenBase to accelerate technology development for acquiring banks and drive international expansion.

"Acquiring banks and most businesses were built for the one-to-one transactions of Commerce 1.0. However, in the era of Commerce 2.0, where transactions within a single marketplace involve numerous parties, financial institutions are struggling to deliver payment operations that meet the evolving needs of their customers. As a result, they’re unable to compete with the likes of Stripe Connect and Adyen whose solutions currently dominate the payments ecosystem despite high fees, complicated integrations, poor support, and prolonged payment wait times. At Ryft, we have the technology that allows acquiring banks to overcome these hurdles and we’re actively exploring several strategic partnerships to solve this issue in the payments industry."
— Sadra Hosseini, CEO and Co-founder
Seed
£1.1M

Maven Capital Partners and the Investment Fund for Scotland backed the Glasgow-based marketing technology platform.

"Technology enabled product sampling is an exciting and fast growing market. Triyit is well positioned in the space with a strong consumer following and traction gained with a number of well known, established brands. The company has achieved impressive growth to date, and we look forward to supporting Alex and the team as they embark on the next stage of their strategy."
— Rob Stevenson, Investment Manager
Seed
£1.0M

The funding round was facilitated by Mercia Ventures and marks the first deal from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II.

"Unlike vehicle assembly, where processes are repeatable, with aircraft the need for lightweight components and high precision means that no two operations are the same. For this reason automation has so far proved too difficult or too costly. Our robot guidance systems overcome these challenges. The investment from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II will enable us to consolidate our position and start work on the next generation of products to ensure we maintain our position as thought leaders in the industry."
— Roger Holden, CEO
Series A
£15.7M

The cryptocurrency payments specialist secured the Series A round to fund its expansion into the US and Latin America.

"Over the past 12 months, we have been building out a series of non-custodial, on-chain products, creating a whole new type of crypto payment,"
— Simon Jones, Chief Commercial Officer
Series A
£4.0M

The investment round was led by Archangels to help the life science firm advance its cell analysis platform.

"We are uniquely positioned in harnessing the power of consumer electronics technology to meet the emerging, complex needs of the bioprocess industry. On the back of a very successful year for Cytomos, this new funding will now allow us to scale up our engagement with industry partners. We truly believe that, through our CDS technology, we offer a powerful platform which will help the scientific community bring novel therapies to market faster and radically reduce costs by making better informed, game-changing decisions a lot earlier."
— David Rigterink, CEO
Seed
£1.3M

The Leicester software firm has raised a further £1.3m from the MEIF Proof of Concept and Early Stage Fund, Mercia EIS Funds and angels.

"This investment is key to the next level of growth within our business. The next 12 months are going to be very exciting, seeing us reach other markets and geographies with a product that is always innovating for the good of our customers."
— Leanne Bonner-Cooke, Founder
Seed
£250K

The expense platform secured the capital from a Seedrs campaign and the Future Fund.

"We are excited to announce this latest funding round and overwhelmed with the drive and support behind the Seedr campaign. We go into 2021 with a strong proposition as we continue using the power of Open Banking technology to drive our product innovation."
— Billel Ridelle, Founder and CEO