British Business Investments (BBI) has announced a £7m commitment to FOLK2FOLK, a specialist lender for rural and regional smaller businesses.

FOLK2FOLK specialises in providing finance to smaller businesses within regional UK, and has delivered £488m of investment into regional smaller businesses since 2013.

BBI, which is a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary within the British Business Bank group, aims to increase the supply and diversity of finance for smaller businesses across the UK by boosting the lending capacity of a range of finance providers.

Since its establishment in 2014, BBI has committed over £3bn to providers of finance to UK smaller businesses.

“This commitment to FOLK2FOLK will help these types of businesses, throughout the UK, to access the finance they need to grow and prosper,” BBI CEO, Judith Hartley, commented.

FOLK2FOLK co-founder and director, Louis Mathers, added: “By focusing on rural and regional businesses, FOLK2FOLK serves an extremely viable but underserved part of the SME landscape. Too often, investments overlook businesses operating outside of large urban areas.

“We founded FOLK2FOLK on the belief that something needed to be done about this regional disparity in funding. We felt a greater connectedness was needed between investors and regional Britain, and FOLK2FOLK was founded in early 2013 to be a mechanism to enable this. Together with our investors, we are helping to level the playing field for regional businesses.”

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