Evaluation of the Nations and Regions Investment Funds: Early Assessment
The programme
SQW was commissioned by the British Business Bank to undertake an early assessment of their ‘Nations and Regions Investment Fund’ (NRIF) programme, in collaboration with Beauhurst, Navigator Insight, Dr. Robyn Owen, Dr. Karen Bonner, Professor Max Munday and Professor Colin Mason. The fund is a £1.6bn investment, launched in 2023/24, that aims to reduce regional inequalities in access to business finance, ultimately aiming to unlock greater economic growth across the UK.
The programme offers debt and equity through locally-based fund managers. By the end of September 2025, the programme had supported nearly 900 businesses, providing them with almost £300m of investment.
The evaluation
SQW’s evaluation assessed both the delivery of the programme and early outcomes, drawing on the following:
- Analysis of the programme’s monitoring data, including data on individual investments
- Analysis of the wider finance ecosystems within each of the six regions – including using Beauhurst data to characterise the level and nature of business investment
- 82 qualitative interviews with stakeholders, including individuals from the British Business Bank, Central Government, all fund managers and local stakeholders in each area
- A telephone survey with 171 with beneficiary firms, followed by 11 in-depth case studies
- A wider e-survey with local stakeholders to assess the ‘state of the finance ecosystem’ and the changes since NRIF was launched.
Key Findings
Overall, the evaluation findings are positive at this early stage of delivery:
- The design is fit-for-purpose and sufficiently flexible for fund managers to tailor their offer to meet the needs of different local contexts
- The programme has progressed well and deployment was on target overall (albeit with variation between funds)
- In addition to finance, firms had levered £233m of private investment and NRIF had played an important role in securing the large majority of this.
- High levels of finance additionality was reported by the firms surveyed, whereby the majority of firms would not have secured finance, taken longer to secure the finance or would have secured less in the absence of the programme.
- NRIF is quickly translating into early benefits for the firms, including increasing their productive capacity and efficiency, and strengthening the drivers of productivity and growth (e.g. improving workforce skills and developing new products/services).
Further Information
The full evaluation report can be found on the British Business Bank website, here.
If you would like to find out more about this study, please contact Rebecca Pates at rpates@sqw.co.uk or Osman Anwar at oanwar@sqw.co.uk.
