The South West Investment Fund has passed £157 million deployed across 283 businesses in three years, the British Business Bank reported on Monday 27 July1. The fund launched in July 2023 and covers Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Bristol, Dorset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.
Of that total, £75 million went in directly and £82 million followed as private co-investment, in tickets ranging from £25,000 loans to £5 million of equity. Four regional fund managers deliver it rather than the Bank itself: SWIG Finance, FW Capital, The FSE Group and Maven Capital Partners2.
The average works out at roughly £265,000 a company, which is below the floor at which a venture fund can justify the diligence cost. That is the gap the instrument exists to fill, and the co-investment ratio is the test of whether it works: every pound the Bank put in pulled slightly more than a pound of private money behind it.
Astral Systems' £23 million Bristol round moved the whole region's annual equity share on its own. Regional funding tables are built from rounds of that size, so 283 small deals will never appear in one. Building the fund this way accepts statistical invisibility in exchange for reaching companies a Headline round never touches.
