Future fund nears £1bn mark
Almost £1bn has been earmarked for 971 companies via the future fund, the British Business Bank (BBB) has revealed.
£975.5m worth of convertible loans have been approved to date, across a diverse range of firms. The BBB reported that 39 per cent of funding has gone to companies outside of London. However, London-based companies have received more than half of all funding to date, with more than £590m delivered to the capital so far.
15 per cent of funding has been given to companies headquartered in the south of England, 11 per cent was sent to companies in the North West, North East and Yorkshire and the Humber, eight per cent went to the east of England and four per cent went to the Midlands.
Just three per cent of funding has been delivered outside of England, to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
The BBB also highlighted its work to deliver funding to firms which have diverse leadership.
More than three quarters (78 per cent) of the future fund has gone to firms with mixed gender senior management teams, and 59 per cent went to firms with mixed ethnicity senior management teams.
A number of peer-to-peer lending platforms have applied to use the future fund in recent months, with the likes of Assetz Capital, Crowd2Fund and FutureBricks using the fund to match private fundraising efforts.
Earlier today (17 December), Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that he was extending the deadline for future fund applications to 30 March 2021. Previously, the deadline had been extended to 31 January 2021.
“Our package of support for businesses and workers continues to be one of the most generous and effective in the world – helping our economy to recover and protecting livelihoods across the country,” Sunak said.
“We know the premium businesses place on certainty, so it is right that we enable them to plan ahead regardless of the path the virus takes, which is why we’re providing certainty and clarity by extending this support.”
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