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New £ 210 million investment fund launches to unlock growth in the South East of England
This supports the government’ s plan for growth in every postcode by helping businesses access finance close to home. By backing ambitious smaller businesses, the fund aims to support innovation, create jobs and stimulate sustained economic growth in the region.
Covering Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Sussex, Surrey and Kent, the South East Investment Fund will provide much-needed access to finance for SMBs, offering loans from £ 25,000 to £ 2 million and equity investments of up to £ 5 million to help businesses start, scale and grow.
new £ 210 million fund designed to support the growth of
A small- and medium-sized businesses in the South East of England, has been launched by the British Business Bank.
Launch of the South East Investment Fund and the East of England Investment Fund means the British Business Bank is now delivering targeted finance across every UK nation and region outside of London.
The fund has already made its first investment with a £ 250,000 loan to Basingstoke technology company, Process Vision, demonstrating early impact in the region. The funding is backing the company’ s next phase of commercial growth and international expansion.
The South East of England is home to 17 % of the UK’ s university spinout businesses, behind only London, while the region received 5 % of the UK’ s total equity investment by value last year. The launch of the fund will help to ensure the bridge between academic innovation and market deployment is adequately supported in the region.
UK SMEs ramp up AI spending as adoption surges
AI is rapidly becoming part of the everyday toolkit for UK
SMEs, with businesses increasingly using the technology to support everything from software development and content creation to research, productivity and routine administration.
Our internal data shows just how quickly this shift has happened. The proportion of SME cardholders spending with AI providers has risen from 1.1 % in Q1 2023 to 12.8 % in Q2 2026, meaning more than one in eight businesses in the dataset were buying AI by mid-2026. Over the same period, AI’ s share of total SME card spend increased almost thirtyfold.
To understand how this shift is changing SME spending behaviour, the team at Capital on Tap analysed internal business credit card transaction data from UK SME cardholders between Q1 2023 and Q2 2026. The analysis focuses on spending with identified pure-play AI providers, tracking changes in adoption, spending habits, provider preferences and the types of AI tools businesses are investing in.
The increase has been particularly pronounced over the past year, suggesting that adoption is accelerating rather than simply continuing at a steady pace.
AI’ s share of total card spend has also grown substantially, rising from 0.005 % in Q1 2023 to 0.146 % in Q2 2026. While AI remains a relatively small proportion of overall SME expenditure, the scale of the increase points to a real shift in how businesses are allocating technology budgets.
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