SEIS Funding Surges

Each year, HMRC releases insights into the performance and regional data for the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS). These Government-backed reliefs remain powerful tools for investors and promotes investment and growth in early stage businesses. The latest data, released in May 2025, covers the 2023/24 tax year.

National Picture for 2023/24

• EIS investment dropped — 3,780 companies raised £1.575bn through EIS, down 20% from £1.971 bn the previous year. These are the lowest figures raised in the last 10 years, likely driven by the challenging economic backdrop and uncertainty, paired with increasing interest rates.
• SEIS saw a surge — 2,290 companies secured £242m, an increase of 51% compared with prior years. This growth has been driven by policy change, with the extension to the scheme limits to £250k per company and £200k per investor.

Our Region – the South West

London continues to receive the highest proportion of investment, receiving over 50% of all investment under both schemes, with the South West receiving less than 10% of the funds. The region receives the fourth highest amount of EIS funding, but drops to fifth place for SEIS funding. These figures may be skewed as the results are based on a company’s registered office, which may not be their trading address.

Disappointingly, the South West is one of the few regions where the portion of investors outweighs the amount invested into the regions businesses. This suggests some funds are flowing out of the region to other areas, such as London and the the South East.

2025 and beyond

We've started to see an increase in investment activities within our client based in Q2 of 2025, boosting the current outlook for the South West tech sector. The sector has also been buoyed by recent announcements of additional funding, included the likes of a further £50m investment into the Foresight South West Fund targeting SMEs in the region. This is in addition to the first close of £50m at the back end of last year. In addition, there were a number of funds launched last year with a focus on the South West.

How we can help your business

• Advance Assurance Support

  Getting HMRC Pre-Approval for EIS/SEIS is essential. This ensures investors have confidence in your eligibility before committing capital.

  Under both schemes, the number of advance assurance applications that were rejected increased compared with the prior year. This shows the complexity and potential additional scrutiny HMRC are applying to these applications. Rejections can lead to delays in funding, so its key to get this correct.

• Compliance Management

  We can guide you through pre and post-investment. We provide support completing the EIS1/SEIS1 forms and issuing investor certificates, ensuring the requirements are met.

All the statistics and data from this article can be found on https://www.gov.uk.