The figures are a snapshot of the fund at the end of last year and do not reflect the hundreds of other investments on the Future Fund’s book. These may lead to profitable returns for the taxpayer, or alternatively deepen its losses.
Mr Sunak championed the Future Fund while he was Chancellor in 2020 as one of a string of taxpayer-funded support measures to help businesses through the pandemic. It provided loans to start-ups, which convert into shareholdings when the company next raises money. The fund only sees a cash return when the company is sold or goes public.
The fund invested £1.1bn into 1,190 start-ups. At the end of March, 529 loans had converted to shares, 502 remained as loans, 49 had been sold, and 111 had become insolvent.
Among the exits include ContentCal, which was sold to the US tech giant Adobe, and regulatory technology company Passfort, which was sold to Moody’s.
The BBB said it expected the fund to track the wider market as more of its investments mature.
A spokesman said: “The Future Fund is a portfolio of convertible loans and shareholdings, the value of which is not solely measured by realised cash returns. As venture capital is long-term term investment, it is too early to give an indication of the overall Future Fund performance, however due to the size of the portfolio, and the commercial nature of the third-party investors, we expect it to track the market over time.”
The BBB put the fair value of the fund at £1.04bn last April.
Hundreds of start-ups backed by the fund face a cliff-edge in the coming months as the loans begin to mature. Companies that took out the loans in 2020 and 2021 must repay them on onerous terms or seek an extension if they do not raise new funding before the three-year loans expire.
