Will Gresty

Will Gresty is a Portfolio Partner at BGF (Business Growth Fund), one of the UK and Ireland's most active growth-capital investors. He joined BGF in 2011, early in the firm's life, as an investor covering London and the South East. Over more than a decade he has moved from originating and executing deals into a portfolio-focused role, working alongside management teams of BGF's investee companies to drive value through follow-on investments, bolt-on acquisitions, and exits. In January 2025 he was among a group promoted to Partner, appointed from BGF's Portfolio team.

Before BGF, Gresty spent roughly six years at Bank of America in both London and the United States, latterly as an Associate in the bank's leveraged finance team, where he worked on acquisition financing. That leveraged-finance grounding underpins his current focus on capital structure, follow-on funding, and exit execution across BGF's portfolio.

On the academic side, Gresty holds an MA in Economics & Economic History from the University of Edinburgh and completed an MBA at London Business School in 2011, immediately before joining BGF. He now describes his role as a portfolio specialist "focused on working with our portfolio companies to drive value, through supporting acquisitions, follow-on investments and delivering successful exits."

• Invests as part of BGF, which provides minority, non-controlling growth equity to established UK and Irish businesses — a different profile from an angel or seed investor.
• Backs companies that are already generating revenue and growing, then supports them over multiple years with follow-on capital and buy-and-build acquisitions rather than making early speculative bets.
• Emphasis in his own role is on the full ownership lifecycle: strengthening portfolio companies operationally and then delivering successful exits (his stated focus is "supporting acquisitions, follow-on investments and delivering successful exits").
• Comfortable with complex capital structures given his leveraged-finance background at Bank of America, and works closely with founders and BGF's value-creation team through the hold period.