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The volume of Private Equity and venture capital funding that flowed into British companies jumped by 44 percent last year when investors are increasingly looking outside London for opportunities.
Private capital companies invested £ 29.4 billion in British companies in 2024, compared with £ 20.4 billion 2023, revealed research from the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.
Private capital now makes an annual financial contribution of almost £ 200 billion to the broader British economy, which corresponds to seven percent of GDP, up from six percent last year.
SMEs represented nine out of ten of the nearly 1,600 companies that received private capital investments last year.
There are now over 2.5 million jobs supported by private capital, up from 2.2 million in 2023, with 69 percent of those working outside London.
While 42 percent of the investments invested in were in London, the proportion decreases slowly.
Other areas in England saw an increase in private capital investments in the past year, with cash that flowed into eastern England, which jumped from £ 1.3 billion to £ 4.7 billion in a single year, thanks to support for IT and communications companies.
In addition, investments in the northwest increased from £ 885 million to £ 2.3 billion, by more than half of the funding aimed at biotechnology and medical companies, while the amount of money invested in the southwest jumped from £ 717 million.
“This industry’s investment affects all four corners of the UK and helps to ensure that these companies in the nations and regions have similar opportunities for growth as their counterparts in the capital,” said BVCA’s CEO Michael Moore.
“In order to enable investment levels to continue, it is important that the government ensures that the UK remains an internationally attractive destination for private capital investments at a time of increasing geopolitical uncertainty.”
