Summary List Placement   The COVID-19 pandemic sparked a wave of panic among investors in the early months of 2020, with many investors fleeing early-stage startup deals. By March, almost one-third of investors had pulled out of UK seed funding deals amid fears that the pandemic was about to trigger a global recession, according to data from SeedLegals. In an effort to save Britain's burgeoning tech scene from going under, Chancellor Rishi Sunak devised a £250 million "Future Fund", managed by the state-funded British Business Bank, and designed to save promising startups from the brink of collapse.