Longwall's Fund 1 backed OrganOx, which was sold to Terumo for $1.5bn in 2025, a 19.2x return on the British Business Bank's original capital and the largest-ever Oxford University spinout acquisition.Source: IT Pro / Oxford University

How much has the British Business Bank committed to Longwall Ventures and for what purpose?

The British Business Bank has committed £50m as a cornerstone investor in Longwall Fund 4, which targets £100m to back 14-16 early-stage deeptech firms writing £500k-£2m cheques.Source: IFA Magazine

What sectors does Longwall Ventures invest in?

Longwall writes cheques into early-stage UK deeptech across advanced manufacturing, clean energy, defence and life sciences, typically filling the gap between university proof-of-concept grants and institutional Series A rounds.Source: IT Pro

Background

The British Business Bank made a £50m cornerstone commitment to Longwall Ventures Fund 4 on 27 May 2026 via its Enterprise Capital Funds programme. Fund 4 targets £100m total and had reached £86.2m at announcement. The fund writes £500,000 to £2m cheques into 14 to 16 early-stage deeptech companies across advanced manufacturing, clean energy, defence and life sciences.

Founded in Oxford around 2008-2011, Longwall Ventures has built one of the UK deeptech sector's most credible track records. Its Fund 1 backed OrganOx, the Oxford spinout maker of liver perfusion devices, which was sold to Japan's Terumo in 2025 for $1.5bn, a 19.2x return for the British Business Bank on its original commitment and the largest-ever acquisition of an Oxford University spinout.

Longwall targets what it calls the 'tier gap': the space between university proof-of-concept grants and institutional Series A rounds, where capital-intensive deeptech companies most frequently fail. The BBB's continued commitment across four funds reflects the long-term Nature of deeptech investing; OrganOx took 17 years from founding to exit. The tier gap widened further in the following weeks: British Business Bank data published 2 July showed university spinout equity deals down 33% by count and 51% by value in 2025, with over a third of rounds closing below £500,000, the exact evidence for why the Bank keeps re-upping rather than expecting the gap to close on its own.