- The British Business Bank is going to invest as much as £46 million in Zinc’s new Science-for-Impact Fund.
- The £70 million fund is intended to support 80 deep tech startups emerging from UK research in the fields of health and climate.
- This is the Bank’s second major investment in Zinc, following its role in securing the fund’s closure in 2022.
Chris Watson studied gene regulation in failing hearts at Queen’s University Belfast for 15 years to find a treatment for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition that affects one in 500 people in the UK.
As a result of his research, he founded SignaCor Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company. In March 2026, SignaCor won the top award in Zinc‘s Discovery Spark cardiovascular group and was included in Zinc’s portfolio.
Zinc’s strategy of engaging scientists before setting up companies received further impetus when the British Business Bank committed up to £46 million to the new Science-for-Impact Fund.
This commitment is included within the Bank’s Enterprise Capital Funds programme, a scheme designed to assist new UK venture managers. Zinc intends to raise a final £70 million and aims to back 80 companies in the health and environmental sectors that align with government priorities, such as advanced manufacturing, clean energy, life sciences, engineering, biology and AI.
At a time when UK deep tech funding reached $11.3 billion in the first eight months of 2026, deep tech accounted for 41% of European venture funding, with most of it directed towards AI infrastructure and defence. Unlike others, Zinc chooses to collaborate with researchers before any business plans are drawn up, and instead builds its companies around them.
Turning lab research into startups
Epiome, an AI biomarker platform founded in 2024 by Rowan Rimington and Jessie Li, is designed to detect diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s from a blood sample taken many years before symptoms appear. CellMine, which is headed by CEO Simon Rathbone, has developed a new chemical method for recycling lithium-ion batteries, addressing a problem in an industry expected to generate more than 11 million tons of used batteries each year by 2030.
And Speek, which was co-founded by Kanu Batra, has created a digital platform supported by clinicians for families who are looking after teenagers suffering from self-harm, and has already provided assistance to over 600 families via partnerships with NHS trusts.
“There are very limited treatment options for these patients today,” Watson has said of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, whose existing therapies manage symptoms rather than reverse them.
A familiar shape for the Bank’s support
When the VC completed its £28 million round in 2022, the Bank provided support for Zinc’s earlier fund through the Enterprise Capital Funds programme. It had also used the same approach to secure Longwall Venture Partners’ £100 million deeptech fund by investing £50 million and to back Antler’s UK Fund II with £25 million earlier in 2026.
The Science-for-Impact Fund is now the 55th fund within the ECF programme that the Bank has supported since it started, as part of its regular pattern of making two to three commitments each year.
“Breakthrough businesses need support from the very earliest stages if they’re to realise their potential. Zinc has a strong track record of backing founders tackling significant health and environmental challenges,” said Mark Sims, the Bank’s managing director for development equity funds.
Ella Goldner, Zinc’s co-founder and managing partner, framed the fund as fixing a leak in the system: “too many breakthrough discoveries never become the companies that improve lives,” she said, pointing to the gap between UK research output and commercialised businesses.
Misodzi Mukungurutse, the Bank’s senior investment manager for development equity funds, added that Zinc’s “hands-on approach” from day one is what sets it apart from other early-stage managers.
The fact that Longwall’s science-driven approach has already achieved a 19.2x return from OrganOx’s $1.5 billion sale serves as evidence that it is possible to build venture companies in the UK in a patient, deep-tech manner. Zinc has not yet had an exit of comparable size.
If 80 more companies built around researchers like Watson can change that, it will show whether institutional venture building can really become a main path from UK lab to UK company, or if it will remain a smaller, slower part of a market now focused on big AI funding rounds.
