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“ Within the UK the problem is companies that are between £ 50m and £ 500m are struggling to access capital . This is important because they will be the ones that will employ your children and grandchildren ”
The next level Penny adds : “ A lot of interesting knowledge-intensive companies in the UK , particularly in areas such as life sciences and biotech , are just struggling to access the £ 10m and £ 20m that they need to move to the next level .” But there are signs the government is addressing the problem . The Patient Capital Review was announced in 2016 , which led to the launch of the £ 2.5bn British Patient Capital investment programme in 2018 . This invests in a portfolio of best-in-class venture and growth capital funds , aiming to unlock an additional £ 5bn of institutional capital and become privatised once it establishes a strong record and proves the value of the asset class . Gervais Williams , manager of the Premier Miton UK Smaller Companies fund , was a member of the industry panel for the Patient Capital Review . He has been encouraged by what it has achieved so far . “ A lot of capital has already gone to work and there is a lot of stuff that is immature but that will mature in due course ,” he says . “ The opportunity of the Patient Capital Review was to extend the stepladder down so companies that had early-stage funding from friends and family had more opportunity to scale up .”
Founder-run Williams adds : “ This means the original founders can guide those businesses going forward without having a significant change of ownership in the next three or five years just because they ’ ve gone to venture capital or private equity . “ Instead there is more opportunity for them to use alternative structures and I think that is sensational . The Patient Capital Review is undersung at the moment and we haven ’ t seen the full outcome as yet . But a lot of investment has gone in , which is brilliant .” The manager says that another reason to be optimistic about the UK is that its recent underperformance could be cyclical rather than structural – and that while it appears to be at the lowest point in the cycle , the US is likely to be at its peak .
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