Business Growth Fund one year on "That's a very small number," says Welton. Those 5,000 companies are our universe but the current growth capital available to them in the UK is only scratching the surface. That's what the BGF is here to do; to provide that capital on terms and in a way that these companies find attractive. Formed following government talks with high street banks, which also produced the Project Merlin lending agreement, the BGF is owned by Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered banks and invests between £2m and £10m in companies for between five and seven years. It is now averaging two completed investments a month and expects to do 25 deals in 2012. "We have an offering that people clearly want to learn about," says Welton. They don't want to sell their businesses or give up complete control. We are not looking for that. We're looking for a minority position. Since last May, the BGF has opened six offices - in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and London - and recruited 60 staff, including 40 experienced investors. Welton says it is already the largest growth capital company in Britain in terms of capital, staff, offices and the number of deals completed annually. So far, it has clinched nine deals, making investments in cloud computing and data systems business GCI Telecom Group, Mexican restaurants chain Barburrito, online reward and employee benefits provider Benefex, social video distribution company Unruly, Statesman Travel Group, pub chain Wear Inns, Glasgow-based M Squared Lasers, Aberdeen oilfield services business STATS and Wolverhampton toy-maker Wow! Stuff. "Our capital is going to turbo-charge those businesses," says Welton. [We will be] enabling them to accelerate their growth to make that investment in a new factory, invest more in research and development, open up an overseas sales office or build up their supply chain in Asia. But what do these companies get from BGF that other investors don't provide? Wayne Martin, managing director of Lincoln-based GCI, the largest company the BGF has invested in, with £65m turnover and 220 staff, says: "The values of what I saw of venture capital and private equity over the past 12 to 24 months were not a perfect fit for what I wanted out of an investor. When we went through the values of the BGF fund, they ticked the boxes. I felt that the BGF criteria of being a minority investor was far more aligned to what I wanted. We can see significant growth coming out of future organic sales and also the acquisition fund that we have got available to us now and I wanted to make sure I was part of that journey going forward and in control of that. The BGF has invested £10m in GCI and £3.25m in Manchester-based Barburrito, which has turnover of £4m and wants to expand from its current six sites to 18 over the next four years. Barburrito's financial and property director, Paul Kilpatrick, says: "There are venture capital and private equity firms out there we talked to. In terms of why we selected the BGF, they were investing the right sums of money. You get an awful lot of private equity houses who invest £5m to £10m, or more than £10m, and quite a few people investing between £250,000 and £1m but in that mid-market of £2m to £5m there are very few people operating. The BGF is comfortable in putting money in and leaving it in a company for six years and the chemistry is right.