Ascension Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm focused on pre-Seed and Seed investing, has secured a new commitment of up to €11.5 million (about £10 million) aimed at widening access to early-stage funding for founders across the UK—particularly those based outside London and the South East.
The capital comes from the British Business Bank (BBB) through its Regional Angels Programme, a government-backed initiative launched in 2019 to address regional disparities in early-stage equity finance. The programme typically supports angel networks and early-stage investors operating beyond the UK’s traditional investment hubs.
Targeting regional gaps in early-stage capital
While the overall commitment is modest compared with many recently announced European early-stage funds, its purpose is explicitly regional: to strengthen the supply of “patient” early-stage capital available to entrepreneurs in areas that have historically attracted less venture funding.
Jean de Fougerolles, Managing Partner at Ascension Ventures, said the backing reinforces the firm’s long-standing thesis that entrepreneurial potential exists nationwide, even when capital does not.
“We have long believed that talent is distributed across the UK, but opportunity is not,” he said. “This up to £10 million commitment from the British Business Bank allows us to double down on our mission to back exceptional founders regardless of their postcode.”
How Ascension plans to deploy the commitment
Ascension Ventures, founded in 2015, positions itself as an early-stage investor built by exited operators and focused on backing technology and impact-driven businesses. The firm says it has more than £100 million (over €115 million) in assets under management, has backed 150+ early-stage companies, and has recorded 15 exits to date.
Under the new partnership, the firm plans to deploy the BBB capital alongside its existing investment vehicles, including EIS/SEIS funding routes and its institutional impact fund, Ascension Fund III. The stated goal is to increase the firm’s ability to write “high-conviction” cheques and provide longer-term support to early-stage companies as they scale.
Mark Barry, Senior Investment Director at the British Business Bank, said the decision reflects the investor’s track record and founder-facing reputation.
“We’re delighted to partner with Ascension, who have an incredible founder friendly reputation,” Barry said. “This reputation, coupled with how they have demonstrated their commitment to invest commercially with impact across the UK, makes this an exciting commitment through our Regional Angels Programme.”
Set against a broader rise in early-stage fund activity
The commitment arrives amid continued capital formation at the pre-Seed and Seed end of the European market through 2025 and into early 2026, with multiple new and expanding funds announced across regions and sectors.
Recent examples include Munich-based Vanagon Ventures raising €20 million for pre-Seed DeepTech and AI; Copenhagen-based The Footprint Firm closing its €76 million Footprint Fund I targeting climate and DeepTech startups across Northern Europe; and UK-based Concept Ventures raising €75 million for a dedicated pre-Seed fund.
In addition, London-linked climate-focused investor 2150 closed a larger €210 million second fund, with some capital continuing to support earlier-stage companies. Elsewhere, Milan’s Step Venture launched a €30 million early-stage fund, while the Netherlands’ Rubio Impact Ventures closed €70 million for its third impact-focused vehicle.
Taken together, these announcements represent well over €480 million committed to early-stage and adjacent funds during the period. Against that backdrop, Ascension Ventures’ new commitment sits at the smaller end by size, but is more narrowly targeted at regional access within the UK.
Why the Regional Angels Programme matters
The Regional Angels Programme is designed to increase the availability of equity finance for smaller businesses by strengthening local investor ecosystems—often by backing intermediaries such as angel groups and seed funds that can reach founders outside established venture corridors.
For founders, the practical impact can be twofold: more available capital at the earliest stages and a greater chance of finding investors willing to support longer time horizons. For the UK’s innovation economy, the programme is intended to reduce geographic concentration of venture funding and encourage company formation and scaling across more regions.
For Ascension Ventures, the BBB partnership also signals a continued emphasis on combining commercial returns with measurable impact—an approach that has become increasingly prominent among early-stage investors as governments and institutions seek to catalyse private capital into underserved markets.
What comes next
The firm has not disclosed specific allocation targets by region or sector tied to the new commitment. However, its stated strategy is to use the additional capacity to back early-stage founders across “diverse sectors” and to provide the kind of long-term, patient support often required to move from initial product development through to scalable growth.
As competition for high-quality early-stage deals remains strong across Europe, the effectiveness of this commitment will likely be judged less by its headline size and more by whether it translates into sustained investment activity in parts of the UK that have historically been underfunded.
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