New venture platform set up for digital business funding

Legal & General Capital (LGC), together with Woodford Investment Management and the British Business Bank, has invested in a new funding platform for digital businesses at all stages of the funding cycle, from entry to exit.

The new platform, call Accelerated Digital Ventures (ADV) aims to help institutional investors fund digital venture capital. By leveraging science and technology innovations at British universities, it is hoped that digital venture capital funding can act as a catalyst to improve productivity and UK economic growth.

The initiative is also intended to benefit mission-led businesses, which lack access to start-up funding. ADV plans to invest an initial £150 million in digital start-ups. It will target existing digital technology hubs around the UK in Belfast, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford and Sheffield.