The £185m North West venture capital loan fund has now gone live, aiming to provide venture capital and loan funding to existing and start-up business across the north west of England.

Apparently around 40% of the fund, more than £70m, will be ring fenced for Merseyside firms.

The fund will be split across six separate sectors:  Development Capital, Business Loan, Venture Capital, Biomedical, Energy & Environmental and Digital & Creative, being decided by fund managers YFM Private Equity, FW Capital, Enterprise Ventures, Spark Impact, CT Investment Partners and AXM Venture Capital.

£170m will initially allocated to the fund manager, which have a mandate to invest all of their allocation before 31 December, 2015.

A further £15m will be made available for further allocation and investment through to the end of 2015 and is a collaboration between North West Business Finance (NWBF), the Northwest Development Agency, the European Regional Development Fund and the European Investment Bank.

Andy Leach, chief executive of NWBF, said: "While it has taken longer than expected to establish, I believe that The North West Fund is now in a position to provide investment capital to a range of businesses across the region at a critical time."