A startup fund launched by Rishi Sunak during the Covid-19 pandemic invested a whopping £2 million into companies linked to his wife, an analysis carried out by the Guardian has revealed.
The prime minister launched Future Fund in May 2020 to help emerging businesses during the pandemic, despite it being heavily criticised by business leaders at the time, who expressed concern that it would simply create “zombie businesses”.
One person who appears to have done rather well out of the scheme is the PM’s wife, Akshata Murty, who recently told the Tory Party Conference that she and her husband were each other’s best friends.
Carousel Ventures, a company part-owned by Akshata Murty’s venture capital firm, got an investment of £250,000 from the Future Fund to help fund its ownership of a luxury underwear business called Heist Studios.
The PM’s wife also had shareholdings in New Craftsmen, which received a £250,000 Future Fund loan; Mrs Wordsmith, which got £1.3 million from the fund; and Digme Fitness, which received an unknown amount of over £125,000, according to the terms of the fund.
All three businesses went into administration.
Labour’s Pat McFadden, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, has called for greater transparency in relation to Murty’s investments, saying: “Once again there is a government scheme which has given money to companies in which the prime minister’s wife has invested.
“In this case it is from a government fund that was set up despite the chief executive of the British Business Bank, who administered it, warning that value for money from the scheme was ‘highly uncertain’.
