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Growth Plan 2022: British Business Bank response

Press release 06 April 2022

London, UK - British VC JamJar Investments has raised a fund of over £100 million from institutional investors, founders and via a crowdfund to expand their ability to back early-stage consumer brands across the UK and Europe. This includes a cornerstone commitment of £48 million from the British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds (ECF) programme, making JamJar the largest ECF to date.

Founded in 2013, JamJar was launched by the founders of Innocent Drinks – Adam Balon, Jon Wright, Richard Reed – alongside Partner Katie Marrache. Initially investing just the partners’ own capital, JamJar has grown to become the most active Seed-stage consumer investor in the UK and has invested in many of Europe’s best-known challenger brands. This second fund, the first institutionally backed fund for JamJar, will solidify their position as the UK’s leading consumer fund and allow them to invest in and support an even greater number of ambitious founders. The JamJar partners are once again backing the fund with some of their own capital alongside that of the institutional investors.

JamJar has backed an impressive roster of physical and digital customer products, including; Deliveroo, Babylon, Smol, Oatly, Papier and Wild. Their ability to spot and help challenger brands with the potential to become global players has played an impactful role in shaping Europe’s consumer offering for nearly a decade.

This fundraise was structured to enable institutional investors, JamJar’s portfolio founders and the crowd to participate on equal terms. Their founders and the public were invited to invest via a Seedrs crowdfund, with JamJar absorbing all fees, enabling investment on the same terms as larger LPs. The £1 million allocation for JamJar’s portfolio founders and the public was heavily oversubscribed, with the firm closing £2.4 million for Fund II in a matter of days. Over 30 of their Fund I portfolio founders took the opportunity to invest in the firm’s second fund.

JamJar initially invests at Seed or Series A (sub £5 million round) and their initial investment typically ranges from £500k – £3 million. The firm aims to make around 10 investments a year going forward, with up to half of this fund available for follow-on investments.

With a 50:50 gender balance in their investment team and a commitment that all team members receive carry as part of the JamJar profit share ethos, the firm aims to put diversity and equality at the heart of all its decision making.

JamJar is looking forward to helping new category-defining brands win their fight. Consumer consciousness is in our blood and we are proud to be the first fund to absorb all Seedrs fees meaning our crowd has come in on exactly the same terms as larger LPs. This important initiative has the potential to unlock billions of pounds of additional investment for the UK’s fastest growing and most innovative companies, while also enabling the UK’s pension savers to benefit from the value created by UK innovation. We are looking forward to engaging with the market to identify promising structures and vehicles to catalyse institutional investment into high growth potential UK science and technology businesses. - Katie Marrache JamJar Partner
The British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds programme is key in helping to develop and maintain effective venture capital provision in the UK, lowering the barriers to entry for emerging fund managers and for those targeting under-served areas of the market. Our cornerstone commitment to JamJar’s fund will help them to provide successful finance and support to early stage, high-potential UK consumer businesses. This important initiative has the potential to unlock billions of pounds of additional investment for the UK’s fastest growing and most innovative companies, while also enabling the UK’s pension savers to benefit from the value created by UK innovation. We are looking forward to engaging with the market to identify promising structures and vehicles to catalyse institutional investment into high growth potential UK science and technology businesses. - Ken Cooper Managing Director, Venture Solutions, British Business Bank

Notes to editors

About JamJar

JamJar is led by Rich, Katie, Adam and Jon. Three of us set up innocent drinks from a market stall in 1999 and 15 years later sold it to Coca-Cola for north of $700 million. When we were raising venture money everyone said no. Eventually one angel gave us a break as he believed in us and our concept. We created JamJar Fund I two days after leaving Innocent in 2013 to do this for the next generation of entrepreneurs where we believe in both the team and idea. Our bottom line is we are entrepreneurs first and investors second. £100 million Fund II was launched in 2022 to back the best consumer brands.

About the British Business Bank

The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK, and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

The British Business Bank’s core programmes support over £8.5 billion 1  of finance to almost 95,000 smaller businesses 2 . The British Business Bank is responsible for running the government’s Coronavirus business loan schemes and Future Fund, together responsible for delivering £80.4 billion of finance to 1.67 million businesses. The schemes are now closed to new applications.

As well as increasing both supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of the finance options available to smaller businesses. The British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to businesses about their finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success. In light of the coronavirus pandemic and EU Exit, the Finance Hub has expanded and it now targets a wider business audience. It continues to provide information and support for scale-up, high growth and potential high growth businesses, but now provides increased content, information and products for businesses in survival and recovery mindsets. The Finance Hub has been redesigned and repositioned to reflect this, during this period of economic uncertainty.

British Business Bank plc is a public limited company registered in England and Wales, registration number 08616013, registered office at Steel City House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 2GQ. It is a development bank wholly owned by HM Government. British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. They are not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A complete legal structure chart for the group can be found at british-business-bank.co.uk.

The investment from British Business Bank to JamJar does not amount to any endorsement or warranty from the British Business Bank plc, or the government of the UK.

Enterprise Capital Funds are administered by British Business Finance Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Business Bank plc.

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