British Business Bank makes biggest commitment to date with £100m for health fund

The British Business Bank has agreed to make a £100m commitment to Apposite Healthcare Growth I, a fund investing to support the growth of health technology companies primarily in the UK.

The news marks the bank’s largest fund commitment to date and its first to Apposite Capital, a specialist healthcare and life sciences investor. Apposite Healthcare Growth I will invest in innovative companies across medical products, diagnostics, life sciences tools, digital health and pharmaceutical outsourcing services.

The fund aims to address the shortage of scale-up capital for UK life sciences companies approaching a growth inflection,  aligning with the bank’s strategy to create deeper pools of scale-up funding. It will focus on investing in UK companies developing technologies and services to improve patient outcomes and access to healthcare, enabling them to compete globally and create highly skilled jobs.

“The need for scale-up funding is especially pronounced in life sciences,” says Mark Andrews, investment director, funds, life sciences at British Business Bank.

“However, there remains a shortage of later-stage funds, meaning that many promising life sciences companies cannot fulfil their potential in the UK and may embark on premature or sub-optimal exits. Apposite’s new fund has a clear focus on growth stage investing in life sciences and will help convert world-leading UK science into global companies.”

Last month, the SuperSeed Fund III secured a commitment of up to £50m from the British Business Bank to invest in B2B AI and SaaS startups.