UK’s BBI puts $12M into Startup Funding Club for early stage startups

SFC (formerly known as Startup Funding Club - a UK a seed stage investor - has received 10 million from British Business Investments (the commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank), to deploy a total of 40 million across more than 100 early-stage startups in the UK.

SFC intends to deploy the commitment in over 100 early stage businesses across the UK to deliver almost 30m of new funding for start-up and scale-up businesses across all sectors.

This will be a significant boost for early-stage companies across the UK at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has made the funding landscape highly uncertain - in particular in the wake of the UK government's announcement of its Future Fund co-investment scheme, which requires startups to already have received at least 250,000 in private funding to qualify for support, leaving many early-stage businesses still ineligible.

SFC has already completed investments totaling 5 million into 28 companies during Q1 2020, with 1.6 million coming from BBI's commitment.

BBI's commitment is the second to be made through its Regional Angels Programme, which aims to improve access to funding for businesses in parts of the UK where early-stage capital can be scarce.

SFC was incorporated in 2012 by Stephen Page, a former software entrepreneur who founded and exited a number of companies, with a mission to help high-potential start-ups succeed and to make angel investing more accessible.