31JUL

Odyssey Ventures gets £10m state cheque

1 min read

12:32UTC

The British Business Bank committed £10m on 23 July to Odyssey Ventures, a $50m seed fund run from London and San Francisco to get UK founders American capital early.

← Back to Humanoid hit $1.35bn on a customer order Jump to analysis ↓

TechnologyDeveloping

Key takeaway

British state money is now buying UK founders an early route into American capital and customers.

The British Business Bank, the UK Government's state-owned development bank, committed £10 million to Odyssey Ventures on Thursday 23 July ¹. The cheque came through its Regional Angels Programme.

Odyssey Discovery I is a $50 million pre-seed and seed fund, the earliest institutional cheques a company takes, run from London and San Francisco by Ali Mitchell and Michelle Robson. Odyssey's own pitch names the problem it is solving: give UK founders American capital, customers and operating support before better-capitalised US competitors take the market from them.

That is a state institution funding an exit ramp. The reasoning is defensible, since a British company that reaches US customers and US follow-on money early is more likely to still exist at Series B. The trade is that the relationships built at pre-seed tend to determine where the company later domiciles, lists and hires. Capital moves the other way too, and without a state intermediary: PhysicsX took a Series C led by Singapore's Temasek in June without leaving the UK . Four days later the same Bank reported a very different instrument, one designed to buy depth at home rather than reach abroad.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The British Business Bank is the UK government's development bank. It put £10m into a new investment fund called Odyssey Ventures, which is unusual because the fund is run jointly from London and San Francisco and plans to invest in very early-stage companies (pre-seed and seed stage) on both sides of the Atlantic. The £10m is part of a wider $50m fund, so the government's money is one piece of a larger pot that other investors are also contributing to.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The British Business Bank's Regional Angels Programme funds through the Bank's existing fund-of-funds model rather than through its newer £6.6bn direct-investment mandate, which explains why this £10m commitment sits well below the £60m-per-company ceiling that mandate allows.

Odyssey Ventures receives the Bank's money as a limited partner, the same structure the Bank used for Seedcamp's $320m raise in June , rather than as a direct equity stake in any single startup.

What could happen next?

Meaning
Backing a transatlantic fund rather than a UK-only vehicle signals the Bank is willing to fund UK founders' access to US capital networks rather than insisting investment stay domestically routed.

Sources:British Business Bank

Mentions:British Business Bank →AMD Ventures →Odyssey →London →PhysicsX →Singapore →Temasek →San Francisco →

First Reported In

Update #13 · Humanoid hit $1.35bn on a customer order

British Business Bank· 31 Jul 2026

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Different Perspectives

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NATO Innovation Fund

The Fund joined Greenjets' £30m Series A on 21 July alongside NSSIF, betting on ducted electric propulsion's civil market to fund a technology with an obvious defence application. It is backing a company that took twenty-one years to reach this stage, on the expectation that certification-cycle timelines reward patient capital over a quick return.

Prime Movers Lab

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Bosch and Schaeffler

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EQT

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