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British Patient Capital – Full Year Results for the period ending 31 March 2024

Press release 04 November 2024

Driving long-term growth: 

British Patient Capital’s total fund and co-investment commitments reach £2.3 billion, retaining its position as the UK’s largest domestic investor in venture and venture growth capital. Total assets under management have now reached £3.125 billion. 

British Patient Capital committed a total of £381m in the year to March 2024, of which £296m was committed from its core funds and co-investment programme. The business now has 44 different fund managers in its portfolio, with an underlying portfolio of 1,350 companies, 162 more than in the previous year.

Highlights:

  • Across its three programmes, British Patient Capital manages assets with a total value of £3,125m.
  • In 2023/24, British Patient Capital made 10 new fund commitments and 5 new co-investments from the core programme, and 10 direct investments via Future Fund: Breakthrough, totalling £66m.
  • Investments since inception totalled £2,287m across 80 fund commitments, 10 co-investments, and 18 Future Fund: Breakthrough deals.
  • The funds in which British Patient Capital has invested have raised a further £13.4bn from third party investors. 
  • Analysis undertaken by the British Business Bank shows that since British Patient Capital was established, the UK has narrowed its overall VC investment gap with the US.

Maintaining an attractive long-term rate of return for the UK taxpayer:

  • Performance since inception remains robust, with a total gain of £427m (realised and unrealised). 
  • The total portfolio Internal Rate of Return (IRR) since inception for the core programme was 12.5% to end of March 2024. 
  • The portfolio Total Value to Paid-in (TVPI) for the core programme was 1.38 to end of March 2024.

Christine Hockley, Managing Director, Funds, British Patient Capital, said:

British Patient Capital has grown into a significant asset for the UK economy. Over the last few years, we have become the UK’s largest domestic investor in venture and venture growth capital, have delivered competitive returns for the UK taxpayer, and have helped to narrow the gap with the US’s venture landscape. That said, there remain structural challenges in UK venture capital funding and our most promising companies still need investors who can provide long-term capital in order to scale successfully.

Ian Connatty, Board Director, British Patient Capital, and Deputy Chief Investment Officer, British Business Bank, said:

There’s plenty to be excited about as we look forward to 2025 and beyond. We are seeing some very exciting innovations in life sciences and deeptech emerging from all corners of the UK and, at the same time, there are promising signs that we are emerging out of the challenging venture environment that has characterised the last few years. Now is the time to nurture those businesses into becoming the UK’s next high growth success stories.

In addition, the announcement of the British Growth Partnership is a huge endorsement of the work we have done over the last six years. We look forward to playing a growing role in attracting third-party capital, such as pensions funds, to deploy their capital alongside us into the UK’s venture assets. This will unlock much-needed long term capital for the UK’s most promising companies, providing jobs and supporting the UK’s growth ambitions.

Notable commitments and investments during the year include:

Core funds programme

Our core £2.5bn programme invests in UK venture capital funds and co-invests alongside those funds into the most promising later-stage UK businesses within our portfolio. This includes:

  • €20m commitment to life sciences through Earlybird Health Fund II
  • £20m commitment to Episode 1, a specialist early-stage technology investor 
  • £25m committed to emerging manager 13books Capital in FinTech
  • £25m commitment to the second fund by Oxx, a specialist investor in European B2B SaaS companies

Direct & Co-invest Programmes: 

In 2023/24, across our Direct and Co-investing programmes, including Future Fund: Breakthrough, a £425m programme which targets growth-stage R&D-intensive UK companies, British Patient Capital made investments into 10 companies, including:

  • £10m investment in Tenpoint Therapeutics, a London-based engineered cell-based therapeutics company 
  • £10m investment in Southampton-based biotechnology company Curve Therapeutics 
  • £5.5m investment into Phagenesis, a Manchester-based medical device company
  • £5.5m investment in Pragmatic Semiconductor, a Cambridge-based designer and manufacturer of semiconductors
  • £4m additional investment in Quantexa, a London-based global data and analytics software company

Life Sciences Investment Programme

Our £200m Life Sciences Investment Programme (LSIP) aims to increase the availability of later-stage finance for high-potential UK life sciences companies. During the year, the investment criteria of the Life Sciences Investment Programme were adjusted to ensure that it remains appropriate to market conditions. This update has increased interest from international fund managers, enabling British Patient Capital to make a further commitment during the year and strengthening its pipeline of opportunities for this programme. 

Read our Annual Report and Accounts 2024,
 

Further Information

Notes to editors

About British Patient Capital

British Patient Capital Limited is a wholly owned commercial subsidiary of British Business Bank plc, the UK government’s economic development bank. Its mission is to enable long-term investment in innovative firms led by ambitious entrepreneurs who want to build large-scale businesses. Launched in June 2018, British Patient Capital has more than £3bn of assets under management, investing in venture and venture growth capital to support high growth potential innovative UK businesses in accessing the long-term financing they require to scale up. Find out more at britishpatientcapital.co.uk.

British Business Bank plc and its subsidiary entities are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. They are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A complete legal structure chart for British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries can be found on the British Business Bank plc website.

British Patient Capital makes commitments and invests on its own behalf and on behalf of third-party investors whose investments British Patient Capital manages.

The transaction described above does not constitute or imply any endorsement, warranty or recommendation by the UK government, the British Business Bank plc, its subsidiaries or any other party in respect of Purespring Therapeutics. 

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