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The volume of private equity and venture capital cash flowing into UK businesses jumped by 44 per cent last year as investors increasingly look outside of London for opportunities.
Private capital firms invested £29.4bn into UK businesses over 2024, compared to £20.4bn in 2023, research from the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association revealed.
Private capital now makes an annual economic contribution of almost £200bn to the wider British economy, equating to seven per cent of GDP, up from six per cent in the previous year.
Small and medium-sized firms represented nine in ten of the almost 1,600 businesses which received private capital investment throughout last year.
There are now over 2.5m jobs supported by private capital, up from 2.2m in 2023, with 69 per cent of these working outside London.
While 42 per cent of the businesses invested in were inside London, that proportion is slowly decreasing.
Other areas of England saw a surge in private capital investment over the last year, with cash flowing into the East of England jumping from £1.3bn to £4.7bn in a single year, thanks to support for IT and communications firms.
In addition, investment in the Northwest increased from £885m to £2.3bn, with more than half of funding directed to biotech and healthcare firms, while the amount of money invested in the Southwest jumped from £717m to £2.2bn.
“This industry’s investment touches all four corners of the United Kingdom, helping to ensure that those businesses in the nations and regions have similar opportunities for growth as their counterparts in the capital,” said BVCA chief executive Michael Moore.
“However, to enable this level of investment to continue, it is important that the government ensures that the UK remains an internationally attractive destination for private capital investment at a time of increasing geopolitical uncertainty.”
