One year on from the launch of its first venture debt fund for UK technology firms and innovative companies, Barclays is extending its High Growth fund to GBP200 million as part of its commitment to fund innovative scale-ups.
Barclays has seen huge take up from businesses and since launching in May last year has provided GBP100 million in earlier stage financing support to nearly 40 companies.
Barclays remains the only mainstream UK bank to offer high growth businesses and their founders debt funding solutions at this early stage.
The fund is designed to provide access to debt finance; commonly available in the US, but conventionally unavailable to UK businesses. Debt finance provides an alternative to selling equity, enabling entrepreneurs to retain control of development and concentrate instead on accelerated growth. Barclays’ fund is designed to enable technology firms and innovative companies to leapfrog the average 15 year gap between launch as a start-up and consolidation as a mid-size corporate.
Fast growing businesses of this type have traditionally struggled to gain sufficient financing. The Barclays High Growth fund seeks to solve this challenge and promote increased growth in the UK’s digital economy.
