British Business Bank commits up to £46M to Zinc’s new deeptech fund
Tech.eu Cate Lawrence
British Business Bank will put up to £46m into Zinc’s new science fund. It’s meant to turn UK lab ideas into deeptech firms, starting at the earliest stage.
Based on reporting by Tech.eu, Cate Lawrence — read the original for the full story.
Summary, retelling and take written by AI under human oversight; images are AI-generated illustrations. How we work · Report an error
The British Business Bank has agreed to commit up to £46 million to Zinc Capital Management’s second institutional fund, a vehicle called the Science-for-Impact Fund. The goal is straightforward: help more UK deep tech startups get from scientific idea to company, especially in health and environmental fields where the first cheque is often the hardest to find.
The commitment comes through the Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds programme, which is built to widen access to early-stage equity and make venture investing more attractive to private backers. This is also a follow-on. The Bank backed Zinc II in 2022, and this new commitment is meant to let Zinc push further into the earliest stages of company formation.
Zinc’s target is a £70 million fund that would back 80 new deep tech companies. Its strategy lines up with the government’s Industrial Strategy priorities, including Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy and Life Sciences, along with engineering, biology and AI. That mix gives the fund a very specific lane: science-heavy businesses with long development cycles and obvious public value if they work.
Zinc already has a portfolio that shows the kind of bets it likes. SignaCor is working on first-in-class therapeutics for heart disease. Epiome is building an AI-powered biomarker platform for neurodegenerative diseases. Speek focuses on teenage self-harm through a digital clinical care platform. Spine is building an AI operating system for grid-scale battery asset management, and CellMine is working on a waste-free process to recycle lithium-ion batteries.
Mark Sims, who leads Development Equity Funds at the British Business Bank, said breakthrough businesses need support from the very earliest stages. Ella Goldner, Zinc’s co-founder and managing partner, argued that the UK has plenty of scientific talent but too many discoveries never become companies. That is the real bet here: not just more capital, but a system that can turn research into businesses before the moment passes.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the kind of state-backed capital push that actually makes sense: early, patient, and aimed at the awkward middle ground where science is real but the company is not yet. The UK has spent years talking about “unlocking” research; funding ventures like this is the unglamorous bit that might do it. A lot of innovation policy is fireworks. This is wiring.
Read more about this at: Tech.eu
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