Molten Ventures has closed the first £175m of a £350m Ventures Growth Fund, with the British Business Bank writing a £75m cornerstone cheque and Molten itself committing the remaining £100m off its own balance sheet.
Molten Ventures is one of the few listed venture firms in Britain, managing roughly £2bn across its funds and holding positions in Revolut, the Finnish satellite operator Iceye and the digital bank Zopa. Its new vehicle is aimed squarely at the stage where UK founders have historically been forced abroad for capital.
The first close lands at £175m against a £350m target. The British Business Bank has committed £75m as cornerstone investor, the anchor position designed to give later limited partners confidence to follow. Molten has put in the other £100m itself, meaning the fund's opening capital is split evenly between the state development bank and the manager's own balance sheet.
That structure is unusual. A manager taking half of its own first close is a direct alignment signal to prospective LPs, but it also concentrates risk on Molten's listed balance sheet until third-party institutional money arrives to fill the remaining £175m.
The fund will write cheques at Series B and beyond across the UK and Europe, targeting space, artificial intelligence, fintech, quantum, deep tech and hardware. Molten says it has completed more than 40 growth-profile deals and deployed over £700m at that stage, and the new vehicle gives it a dedicated pool rather than requiring every growth cheque to compete for balance-sheet capacity.
"Securing the British Business Bank as a cornerstone investor is a strong endorsement of Molten's strategy and of the relationship we have built over many years," said Ben Wilkinson, chief executive of Molten Ventures. He added that the fund gives the firm "greater firepower to back our highest-conviction companies at Series B and beyond, build meaningful ownership positions and channel capital into the next generation of growth".
The reference to ownership positions is the cap-table point. Growth capital of this size is what allows an existing early backer to defend its percentage through successive rounds rather than being diluted by larger overseas funds arriving at Series B and C.
The close comes as Molten is reported to be among the managers competing to run the government's £1bn Scale Up Fund, alongside M&G Investments and Schroders. That mandate is backed by a group of pension schemes working with the British Business Bank, and a £75m cornerstone into Molten's own vehicle is a visible vote of confidence from the same institution ahead of that decision.
For the wider market, the first close is a test of whether domestic institutional money will follow the state into growth-stage venture, or whether the British Business Bank remains the buyer of first and last resort.
Original source: Tech.eu — https://tech.eu/2026/09/07/revolut-backer-molten-ventures-hits-ps175m-first-close-of-growth-fund/
