British Business Bank makes second investment through the Regional Angels Programme’s new co-investment strategy
The British Business Bank has made a second investment under its new co-investment strategy as part of its £350m Regional Angels Programme into Portal Biotech, a developer of a real-time, single-molecule protein sequencing technology. The company has raised £27m ($37m) in an oversubscribed round led by Earlybird and NATO Innovation Fund.
Built on foundational research, Portal Biotech’s platform enables single-molecule characterisation of intact full-length proteins on accessible benchtop instruments. Portal delivers results up to 100x faster, uncovering disease-linked protein modification that conventional methods miss.
With proteins making up 95% of FDA-approve drug targets, this leap in access and speed could reshape drug discovery and precision medicine.
This £3m ($3.8m) investment to Portal Biotech demonstrates the Regional Angels Programme’s commitment to supporting early-stage companies across the UK, providing additional funding needed to drive growth and innovation.
The Regional Angels Programme’s new co-investment strategy is expected to invest an average of £3m in follow-on funding to c.4-5 top-performing companies from within the Regional Angels Programme’s existing portfolio each year. The Programme typically invests alongside partners at the seed stage but has also invested in later stage rounds. The Bank recently announced the first direct investment into Space Forge, a company that utilises the space environment to manufacture advanced semiconductor materials for critical infrastructure in May 2025, with a £2m investment.
Mark Barry, senior investment director at British Business Bank, said:“This investment into Portal Biotech under the new co-investment strategy demonstrates the Regional Angels Programme’s mission to fund and support category-defining businesses with the potential to be UK leaders and stimulate growth across the UK’s economy. The UK’s life sciences sector is world-leading, providing a great launch-pad for Portal Biotech to continue its development. The company was backed by one of our fund partners, SCVC, in 2021 and 2022 and we have been incredibly impressed with the scale of progress made by the Portal team during these formative years.”