Six venture capital funds supporting AI and deeptech companies have received £180 million in total from the British Business Bank.
The funds cover all investment stages, from inception and early-stage finance through to series B and beyond.
The six fund commitments are:
- £35m to Crane III, a global inception through seed fund for founders at the intersection of AI, software, infrastructure and deep science.
- £20m to Connect V, which backs technical founders at pre-seed stages covering AI, hardware and real-world automation.
- £22m ($30m) to Entrepreneurs First’s Early Stage Fund, which backs founders at seed, series A and series B, including high-potential AI infrastructure companies.
- £55m ($75m) to Intrepid Growth Partners Fund I, a specialist growth investor focused on AI.
- £26m (€30m) to Headline EU VIII, a $400m fund that will back Seed and Series A companies across Europe, with a focus on AI.
- £22m ($29m) to Evantic Fund I which invests in and partners with globally-focused AI companies at the growth stage.
The Bank also announced a direct £10m investment in Salience Labs, the Oxford spinout building optical switching technology that “removes a key bottleneck in AI networking”.
Leandros Kalisperas, CEO of the British Business Bank, said:
“The UK has no shortage of ideas or talent. The problem is that our funding landscape does not currently match our technical excellence. This is what the Bank is changing. These commitments are part of our strategy to create deeper pools of funding at all stages of growth, helping companies to access greater capital domestically and allowing the UK to capture more of the economic value of its innovation.”
Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said:
“AI is going to be a transformative technology for our society and for our economy, which is why it is vital that the UK has its own sovereign capabilities. We have exceptional talent and world-class research capability, now we are working to make sure that there are funding opportunities for AI entrepreneurs which match that potential. This £180m investment from the British Business Bank will help to build the next generation of safe, secure, homegrown companies, ensuring we are AI makers, not AI takers.”
