The British Business Bank has committed up to €53.6M to Zinc’s new Science-for-Impact Fund, an €81.5M vehicle that backs UK founders turning scientific breakthroughs into businesses. The commitment flows through the bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds programme.
Zinc, a London-based venture builder, runs a model where cohorts of founders are recruited to build companies around specific problem areas rather than funding startups that arrive with their own ideas. The Science-for-Impact Fund applies that approach to health and environmental challenges, aiming to build a portfolio of roughly 80 UK deeptech startups.
The bank’s backing follows an earlier commitment to Zinc’s second fund in 2022, deepening a relationship built around early-stage company creation in science-heavy sectors.
Government money has become a fixture of UK venture as the state tries to keep research commercialization at home. The Enterprise Capital Funds programme channels public capital into venture funds that commercial institutions consider too early-stage or too risky, with the British Business Bank acting as anchor investor.
Zinc says the fund will support entrepreneurs from company creation through scale, helping scientific ideas in areas like biology, climate and advanced materials become businesses with global reach.
