The British Business Bank has launched a new £210 million fund for the Southeast. It gives small and medium-sized businesses another way to fund their growth.
The fund opened on 9 September 2026 and is now taking applications. Eligible businesses can get commercial loans between £25,000 and £2 million, or equity investment of up to £5 million if they’re further along in their growth.
If you’re an SME looking to expand, hire, invest, or break into new markets, this is worth knowing about. Access to growth capital has been a sticking point across the region for a while now.
Who Can Access the New South East Investment Fund?
The fund is open to businesses based in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Buckinghamshire.
There are two ways to access it:
- Debt finance: The FSE Group handles commercial loans from £25,000 to £2 million.
- Equity finance: Maven Capital Partners manages equity investment up to £5 million.
Why two routes? Because businesses need different things. A loan lets you keep full ownership, but it comes with repayments. Equity investment can bring in larger sums, but it means giving up some control.
Neither option is automatically the right one. It’s worth thinking through what each would mean for your business before you apply, ideally as part of wider tax planning around how new finance affects your position.
Why Has the £210m Fund Been Launched?
There’s a real funding gap in the South East, and this fund is meant to help close it.
The region produces around 17% of the UK’s university spinouts, putting it among the country’s strongest hubs for innovation outside London. Despite that, it picked up just 5% of total UK equity investment last year.
The idea behind the fund is to get more capital into businesses that clearly have growth potential but have struggled to raise enough through the usual channels. Innovative businesses in this position may also want to check their eligibility for R&D Tax Credits alongside any new funding.
It’s already off the ground, too. Process Vision, a technology company in Basingstoke, has taken the fund’s first loan of £250,000, which will go toward its commercial and international growth plans.
What Does This Mean for SMEs?
For businesses that qualify, there’s now one more option on the table.
Some SMEs will keep relying on their existing lenders without ever checking whether this fund could offer better terms. That would be a missed opportunity for a lot of growing businesses.
But funding being available isn’t a reason to apply for it. A loan means repayments you’ll need to keep up with. Equity means giving up part of your business and, potentially, part of your future returns. Whichever route you’re weighing, it needs to fit where your business is heading.
Before you apply, it helps to be honest with yourself about a few things:
- How much finance do you need?
- What will it be spent on?
- Can the business comfortably meet what it’s taking on?
What Should Business Owners Do Now?
If you’re based in one of the eligible areas, start by working out which route, debt or equity, fits what you need.
From there, pull together your latest accounts, cash-flow position, and forecasts, drawing on up-to-date bookkeeping to keep the numbers accurate. You should be able to explain clearly where the money would go and how it helps the business grow.
Having that information ready also makes it much easier to weigh debt against equity before committing to either.
How Lanop Can Help
Getting funding is only part of the picture. How that finance is structured affects your cash flow, your ownership, and where the business can go from here.
Lanop works with business owners to review their financial position, management accounts, and cash-flow forecasts before they apply for funding, drawing on our wider financial planning services, and helps them understand the tax and financial implications of each option.
If you’re thinking about applying to the South East Investment Fund, getting your numbers sorted with Lanop first will make the whole process a lot easier to navigate, book a free consultation with our team.
