Foresight Group plans to invest more than £1 billion into growing companies across the UK and Ireland over the next five years

• One of the UK’s most active SME investors, supporting more than 250 SMEs throughout the UK and Ireland
• Foresight is investing more than £200 million each year in SMEs, mostly outside of London and the South East
• Investments are growth focused, with over 3,000 jobs created across the portfolio in recent years
• New offices opening this year in Bristol, Exeter and Sheffield amount to 14 across the UK and Ireland

FORESIGHT Group ("Foresight"), the leading regional private equity investor and infrastructure fund manager is planning to invest more than £1 billion in patient capital to support small growing companies across the UK and Ireland over the next five years.

Foresight’s regional teams have been backing ambitious companies for more than 40 years, and are well-placed to super-charge investment into smaller companies with flexible capital focused on SMEs regionally throughout the UK and Ireland.

There is a structural gap for small Private Equity and Venture Capital investments, particularly outside London, which is set to expand further over the coming years.

In its annual results published on June 26th, Foresight reported some £1.8 billion Assets Under Management across its 15 Private Equity Funds, eight VC Funds and private credit fund with more than £250 million invested into smaller companies since April 2024. Flexible in its approach, it invests typically between £0.5 million and £15 million.

In the last financial year, the businesses across its portfolio have jointly created over 200 new roles, with job creation now at over 3,000.

Many of the businesses it backs are in high growth sectors such as advanced manufacturing, clean energy, creative industries, defence, digital and technologies, financial services, life sciences, and professional and business services, but as a sector-agnostic investor, Foresight is ready to back growing, profitable businesses in sectors such as retail and hospitality.  One example, Eden Mobility, is a specialist mobility scooter retailer based in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, which is seeing strong growth and investing significantly in new stores.

Investments in the first half of 2025 include Yorkshire-based Ad Signal Limited, an ambitious content intelligence platform for the media and entertainment industry and Manchester-based healthcare company Functional Gut Group, which offers diagnostic testing for digestive health issues.

This year it expanded its regional footprint as it opened offices in Bristol and Exeter after reaching a final close of its new evergreen £100 million South West Fund as well as South Yorkshire Growth Equity Fund. Like its peers in the North West, Yorkshire, the North East, Scotland and East of England, it is backed by local government pension funds. 

Claire Alvarez, Partner at Foresight Group, said: "With deep experience of working with founders of small companies to support their growth ambitions, helping them create jobs in communities in every region. We are a growth focused investor with a track record of scaling SMEs. 

"From starting up to selling up, Foresight offers capital of every stage of the business growth journey. Often, the businesses we back have never worked with an investor before, so a big part of what our teams are doing is building relationships and reassuring founders that we are a trusted partner, a good custodian of the business they have started and want to see flourish.

“Our approach is centred around three pillars, Invest, Build and Grow, which means that we go a lot further than writing a cheque – it’s a genuine partnership where we build a great team around a founder to help them scale their business, putting in place new processes to help them win bigger customers, and introducing them to experienced entrepreneurs in our network, who have  been there and done it, and really understand the challenges founders face.”