British Business Bank reveals final future fund figures
Businesses accessed £1.14bn of funding under the future fund, official data shows.
Figures released by the British Business Bank have revealed that there were 1,851 applications for the emergency lending scheme since its launch in May 2020 up to its closure in January.
The future fund offered convertible loans ranging from £125,000 to £5m from the government, subject to at least equal match funding from private investors. The fund was open to innovative, high-growth businesses that needed support during the pandemic.
The figures showed that 41 per cent of completed funding went to businesses based outside of London.
Of the £1,14bn funded, 14 per cent went to companies headquartered in the south of England, 11 per cent in the north, eight per cent in the east and four per cent in the Midlands.
Another three per cent went to companies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
London accounted for 59 per cent of companies using the scheme.
Three quarters of funding went to companies with mixed gender senior management teams.
The figures showed that 38 per cent of applicants were technology and intellectual property-based businesses and 35 per cent were from business and professional services firms.
More than 50 per cent of convertible loan agreements were valued between £125,000 and £500,000, the British Business Bank said.
Peer-to-peer lenders including Assetz Capital, FutureBricks, Crowd2Fund and JustUs are among the companies that have used the scheme.