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Back to Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund News – Issue 20

Foreword

Welcome to the 20^th Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund (NPIF) quarterly newsletter. This comes at a pivotal time for the British Business Bank as we start to see the initial impact of our new Nations and Regions funds launch in the South West and the Devolved Nations, with NPIF II and MEIF II to follow early next year.

The last six years of NPIF have created an excellent blueprint for a successful fund. We have seen some of the North’s most innovative, and passionate entrepreneurs access vital funding to help realise business aspirations. As NPIF enters its next iteration, the £660m Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II, there are many takeaways to bring into 2024, as well as a refreshed focus of our investment pillars, new areas to target, and, of course, helping even more businesses thrive.

It cannot be stressed enough that the success to any economy is the existence of a thriving small business community; one that is empowered equally to start up, scale up, and stay ahead across all regions. This is why NPIF was originally launched in 2017, and why there is a further commitment of £660m through NPIF II.

Together with its partners, the Fund has been successful in delivering on its key pledges, especially when it came to investing in hard-to-reach areas beyond the North’s big cities.
In fact, the interim evaluation of NPIF showed as much as 68% per cent of NPIF investment has gone to businesses based outside of the major cities and their surrounding areas.

An excellent example of this is Redcar-based Nova Pangaea Technologies (NPT), a pioneering cleantech business that creates processes to convert agricultural plant residues into advanced biofuels.

In addition to showcasing the impact that NPIF has had in the region, NPT exemplifies the Bank’s commitment to investing in companies dedicated to reaching net zero. According to the Bank’s Small Business Finance Markets report for 2022/23, growth in the number of net zero equity deals outpaced the wider equity market in 2022, with deals getting much larger in investment size. It’s crucial to continue supporting this investment trend.

As we look forward into 2024, focus needs to be placed on unlocking access to finance opportunities for minority groups. Championing female and ethnic minority businesses that have successfully secured funding, such as NPT which is ran by CEO Sarah Ellerby, will be an essential part of expanding the investment pool to these underserviced groups. You can read more on female-founder success through NPIF in our deal in focus in this newsletter.

For NPIF II, a larger fund  including the whole of the North East, invites the opportunity to create new partnerships and stakeholder connections across the North of England and I look forward to seeing what we can achieve together in the future.  I’d also like to thank all our fund managers, Combined Authorities and LEPs, which have made NPIF such a success.

This isn’t the last you will hear on NPIF – we will continue to celebrate the fantastic work of the businesses that we have supported throughout the years. But, as we transition towards NPIF II, please enjoy our latest newsletter, where you can learn about the businesses that received funding this quarter, as well as revisiting our impressive milestone of hitting £1bn of direct and private sector co-investment.

Finally, on behalf of British Business Bank and NPIF, I’d like to wish all our investee businesses, fund managers, partners and stakeholders a safe and happy holiday this year.

Louis Taylor, CEO at British Business Bank

The Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund project is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.

Editors Notes