The British Business Bank says it has provided support to another 2,200 small businesses in the West of England over the last year.
According to the lender's latest Impact Report, these West Country firms are expected to earn £1.2bn in extra turnover over the lifetime of their finance - and create nearly 3,000 extra jobs in the region.
Steve Conibear, 海角视频 network director, South West for the British Business Bank, said: “These figures highlight the important role the British Business Bank plays in supporting smaller businesses across the South West."
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The bank said its £200m South West Investment Fund, which last month marked its 150th deal, had driven almost £66m of investment into new and growing businesses across the region since its launch in 2023.
The fund offers loans from £25,000 up to equity investment of £5m, throughout the West of England.
“Our South West Investment Fund and Start Up Loans programme are delivering real impact on the ground, helping entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey," added Mr Conibear.
"With increased financial capacity, including the recent launch of our Investor Pathways Capital initiative to help diversify the 海角视频 equity market, we’re now well placed to scale up our support and work with more partners to unlock finance for even more businesses across the region.”
The Impact Report comes as the British Business Bank gears up to deliver a step change in financing support to smaller businesses after its financial capacity was increased to £25.6bn in June’s Spending Review.
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It means the lender is able to increase annual investments to around £2.5bn a year and to crowd in more third-party capital.
Nationally, the bank supported a total of £6.8bn of finance for smaller businesses over the 2024-2025 financial year - £1.2bn of its own public funding, £2.6bn of lending guaranteed and an additional £3.0bn of private capital crowded in.
As a result, it backed 24,000 businesses that hadn’t received bank-supported funding before, as well as 4,000 that were first funded by the bank before 2024-2025.
Of those to receive finance, 84% of the businesses supported were outside of London, the British Business Bank added.