Forewords
Linda Bedenik, Head of Biosolutions and International Policy, BIA
Welcome to the first investment analysis from BIA BioSolutions. We have launched this platform because the UK is at a pivotal moment in its industrial history. We are a global leader in engineering biology, yet scientific breakthroughs alone are not enough to transform an economy. They require a dedicated space for innovation to meet scale, and ideas to meet markets.
This report reveals a sector of immense strength. With £1.46 billion raised by UK biosolutions companies since 2018, reaching a new high of £259 million in 2025, we are witnessing the birth of a new industrial era. From sustainable proteins to carbon-neutral materials, biology is no longer a lab-based experiment; it is the most powerful solution we have for a sustainable, resilient future.
At the BIA, our mission is to ensure the UK remains the global destination for this 'biorevolution.' We aren't just observing these trends; we are on the ground in Brussels, Vienna and London, championing the policy shifts and patient capital reforms needed to secure the UK’s strategic autonomy and global leadership. The future is bio-engineered, and through BIA BioSolutions, we are providing the platform to scale it.
Maddie Cass, Policy and Public Affairs Manager, BIA
BIA BioSolutions was created to be more than a communications hub; it is a focal point for a community that is reshaping the core industrial sectors of the UK. As we look at the £1.46 billion flowing into our ecosystem, it is clear that the sector remains a resilient priority for capital. However, to fully realise this potential and navigate the current investment climate, we must bridge the gap between breakthrough science and market-ready products.
Our work focuses on the "three pillars" of success: enabling regulation, long-term investment and readily available, affordable and accessible infrastructure. We are currently working alongside government and regulators to usher in the innovation frameworks and technical standards that will allow innovative SMEs to navigate the roadmap from concept to commercialisation in the UK.
Whether it’s advocating for the scale-up infrastructure needed to unlock advances in engineering biology or facilitating introductions between startups and large corporates, we are here to ensure the UK bioeconomy has the momentum it needs. This report serves as a foundation for our community, providing the insights and data required to influence, grow, and lead. We are starting as we mean to go on: by securing the UK’s position as a global leader in biosolutions.
Overview
BIA analysed funding and investment trends across 155 innovative UK biosolutions companies between 2018 and 2025, providing insight into how capital is flowing across stages and subsectors. UK biosolutions companies raised £1.46 billion of equity financing between 2018 and 2025, with investment peaking in 2022 (£338 million) before reaching £259 million in 2025.
This sustained level of investment reflects growing confidence in the UK biosolutions sector, as companies move beyond early-stage development and begin to scale commercially.
The UK Biosolutions sector has grown over the past decade, following a long period of limited expansion. As shown in the figure below, company numbers remained below 20 until the early 2010s, before increasing from around 2014 onwards. This growth aligns with early government focus on synthetic biology, including its designation as one of the “Eight Great Technologies” in 2012 under David Willetts, alongside the establishment of the Synthetic Biology Leadership Council and BIA’s role in setting up the Engineering Biology Advisory Committee (EBAC).
This trajectory continued with the 2016 UK Synthetic Biology Strategic Plan, and more recently through its inclusion in the 2021 UK Innovation Strategy, the 2023 National Vision for Engineering Biology, and the 2025 sector plan. Together, these milestones highlight the role of sustained policy support in growing the sector to 155 companies in 2025 and supporting its shift toward commercial scale.
Investment trends
Investment into UK biosolutions has strengthened considerably over the past three years, with funding remaining consistently high following the 2022 peak. While total investment dipped in 2023 and 2024, the recovery to £259 million in 2025 suggests renewed investor confidence and continued momentum in the sector.
A key feature of this trend is the steady dominance of later-stage venture capital. In 2025, later-stage VC accounted for £138 million (53% of total investment), broadly consistent with 2024 (53%) and just below the peak observed in 2023 (70%). This reflects a maturing ecosystem, where investors are increasingly backing companies with validated technologies and clear commercial pathways.
Early-stage VC continues to play an important role in supporting pipeline development, contributing £72 million (28%) in 2025. However, its share of total investment has stabilised, indicating that while new companies are still emerging, a greater proportion of capital is now flowing toward scaling existing ventures.
Seed funding, while still important in terms of deal activity, has seen a relative decline, accounting for £34 million (13%) in 2025. This continues a broader trend observed since its peak in 2021, suggesting a shift away from early experimentation toward later-stage growth and commercialization. Public market activity has remained limited across biosolutions. To date, only one company in the cohort, BSF Enterprise, has gone public, completing its IPO in 2019. This highlights the relatively early stage of the sector, with most companies still reliant on private capital to support growth and scale.
Subsector investment trends
Investment across biosolutions subsectors remains concentrated in a small number of high-impact application areas, with agriculture and food continuing to dominate.
In 2025, agriculture and food accounted for £136 million (52.5%) of total investment, up from 47% in 2024 and broadly in line with elevated levels seen in 2022 (54%) and 2023 (57%) This reflects strong investor interest in areas such as alternative proteins, cellular agriculture, and sustainable food systems, areas that have received targeted government policy backing in the UK in the last couple of years.
Chemicals and materials attracted £67 million (25.9%) in 2025, highlighting growing demand for sustainable alternatives to traditional materials.
Environmental applications accounted for £48 million (18.5%), reflecting increasing investor focus on climate-related solutions while underpinning technologies accounted for only 3.1% (£8 million).
Taken together, the data shows that increases in year-on-year investment are not being driven by a consistent increase in the number of companies receiving funding. While deal activity grew strongly up to 2022, it has since fluctuated, rising again in 2024 (46 deals) before falling to 36 deals in 2025, even as total investment has recovered and continued to grow. This suggests that more money is being invested without a sustained increase in deal activity, with funding increasingly concentrated in later-stage companies. At the same time, investment is becoming more focused on a smaller number of application-led subsectors, reflecting a shift toward a more mature ecosystem centered on scaling commercially viable technologies.
Who invests in UK biosolutions?
The UK biosolutions investment landscape is characterised by a strong dominance of venture capital, which accounts for 55.4% of all investors, highlighting its central role in funding the sector’s growth. Notably, this landscape is still heavily shaped by government backed investors such as Scottish Enterprise and the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund, ranking the most active investors by deal count. This underscores the continued importance of public-backed capital in supporting the development of the sector, particularly at early stages.
Leading venture investors such as Future Planet Capital, CPT Capital, and SOSV support companies across areas such as alternative proteins, sustainable materials, and environmental solutions.
Alongside venture capital, angel investors (10.9%) and corporate venture capital (9.5%) play an important role in supporting early-stage innovation and enabling strategic partnerships, particularly for companies emerging from the UK’s strong academic and research base. Impact investors (6.8%) further reinforce the sector’s alignment with sustainability and global challenges, often backing companies addressing climate, food security, and resource efficiency.
Despite this diversity, participation from larger institutional investors such as sovereign wealth funds remains limited. This suggests that while the biosolutions sector has successfully attracted specialist and venture-led capital, there is a significant opportunity to broaden the investor base by unlocking larger pools of long-term capital as companies continue to scale.
The sector also attracts a highly international investor base. While 39.4% of investors are UK-based, the majority (60.6%) are located overseas, led by the Americas (26.4%) and Europe (20.7%), with additional participation from Asia (7.2%). This highlights the global appeal of UK biosolutions companies and their ability to attract international capital. However, it also reinforces the importance of maintaining a strong domestic investment ecosystem to ensure UK-based investors can continue to support companies as they scale.
Government funding
Public funding continues to play a critical role in underpinning the UK biosolutions ecosystem, particularly in supporting early-stage innovation, de-risking emerging technologies, and enabling companies to progress toward commercialisation.
Innovate UK remains the largest public funder, awarding 392 grants at an average value of £238,320, and accounting for most of the grant activity in the sector. Its central role reflects the importance of targeted, innovation-focused funding in supporting high-risk, high-reward technologies that may struggle to attract private investment at early stages. By providing non-dilutive capital, Innovate UK helps bridge the gap between research and commercial viability, making companies more attractive to follow-on private investment.
Other public funders also play important, complementary roles. Horizon 2020 has provided fewer but significantly larger grants, with an average value exceeding £1.1 million, highlighting the importance of international funding programmes in supporting scale and collaboration. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence and Scottish EDGE contribute targeted funding aligned to strategic priorities, supporting innovation in areas such as national security, dual-use technologies, and regional economic development.
Smaller grant providers, including the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society of Chemistry, also contribute to the ecosystem by supporting early-stage research, talent development, and proof-of-concept activity. While individually modest in scale, these funding streams play an important role in maintaining a strong innovation pipeline.
Grant activity has increased significantly over time, with a peak in 2023, followed by sustained high levels in 2024 and 2025, indicating continued public sector commitment to the growth of biosolutions. This sustained investment is particularly important in a capital-intensive sector where long development timelines and regulatory hurdles can delay private returns.
Looking ahead, flagship programmes such as the National Engineering Biology Programme and the Engineering Biology Scale-up Infrastructure Programme will be critical in ensuring that the UK remains globally competitive. As the sector matures, there is a critical need to ensure that public funding is complemented by sufficient scale-up capital. Strengthening the link between grant funding and later-stage investment will be key to unlocking the full economic and societal potential of UK biosolutions.
Methodology
Companies were selected through a qualitative screening of their website descriptions to ensure they fit within the scope of biosolutions. A total of 155 biosolutions companies were identified. They were then categorised into 5 areas based on their primary area of application. Detailed investment analysis was conducted in-house by the BIA on 155 companies for which data was available from Beauhurst and Pitchbook. All figures are based on announced and verified funding deals that occurred between 2018 and 2025. Primary areas of application include:
- Agriculture and food: Companies using industrial biotechnology to deliver innovative agricultural solutions such as crops with improved traits novel plant protection products or biostimulants and those developing new sources of food through methods such as cell cultivation and precision fermentation.
- Chemicals and materials: Companies creating bio-based chemicals and materials designed to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
- Environment: Companies addressing environmental challenges such as pollution and plastic waste through biotechnological innovation.
- Biofuels: Companies developing alternative fuels derived from biomass rather than fossil fuels.
- Underpinning: Companies building the enabling technologies that support industrial biotechnology applications.
Join the biorevolution
- Connect: Join us at BioSolutions UK on 21 April in London to meet the innovators and investors shaping the future of the UK bioeconomy.
- Influence: BIA BioSolutions is your voice in government. Become a member to help shape the regulatory and financial frameworks that will scale our industry.
- Stay Informed: Follow our new BIA BioSolutions LinkedIn page and visit our digital home for the latest case studies, policy updates and strategic analysis.