Innovate UK and British Business Bank sign MoU

The heightened collaboration aims to help create new pathways for business investment and promote growth through innovation.

Innovate UK and the British Business Bank have further strengthened their collaboration by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU).

As partners dedicated to fostering innovation and growth of UK businesses across the country, this new collaboration will see the two organisations working even more closely.

Together they will co-create new opportunities to promote investment and to support UK businesses through better tailored offerings.

This MoU signifies that they will:

• build pathways for businesses that seek British Business Bank or Innovate UK funding to provide more co-ordinated support throughout their growth journey
• promote growth across the nations and regions of the UK through co-ordinated place-based activities
• combine the expertise of Innovate UK and the British Business Bank to develop more tailored offerings for smaller businesses

Pathways for collaboration

As priorities over the next 12 months, Innovate UK and the British Business Bank will work to establish clear pathways for collaboration, from data sharing to co-creation of events.

As the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK is dedicated to supporting inclusive innovation, accelerating companies on their innovation and growth journey, from commercialisation, through startup, to scaleup, and on to enterprise scale.

The British Business Bank’s mission is to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK and to enable the transition to a net zero economy by improving access to finance for smaller businesses.

Innovate UK is dedicated to providing better targeted and more comprehensive growth support for UK businesses through collaborations with partners such as the British Business Bank.

Supporting growth journeys

Indro Mukerjee, CEO, Innovate UK said: "As the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK works to support the growth journeys of innovative UK businesses, from start up to scale up and beyond. The MOU and practical action plan with the British Business Bank are important steps to further build our support for economic growth, increased productivity, and skilled jobs.:

Louis Taylor, Chief Executive Officer, British Business Bank, said: "This Memorandum of Understanding between the British Business Bank and Innovate UK is a fantastic development, with the potential to foster greater innovation and growth for UK smaller businesses. Given our complementary roles in the market, closer collaboration with Innovate UK will help us develop a far better pathway for great innovation to be commercialised in the UK, benefiting the economy, jobs and the innovation ecosystem that we want to thrive."

This article was first published on 16 April by Innovate UK (UKRI).