Every May, HMRC publishes its annual statistics on the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme — the only authoritative dataset on how much capital is flowing through the UK's venture tax reliefs, into which sectors, and where. The May 2026 release covers the 2024/25 tax year, and beneath the headline numbers it tells a more interesting story than the "flat year" summary suggests.
This is EIS Insider's analysis of the release: the figures, what changed, and what they signal for the year ahead.
The headline numbers — 2024/25
| EIS | SEIS | |
|---|---|---|
| Companies raising funds | 3,735 | 2,430 |
| Total raised | £1,575m | £276m |
| Change vs 2023/24 | Flat | +14% |
| First-time companies | 1,145 (£333m) | 1,775 (£229m) |
| Largest sector | Info & Communication — £550m (35%) | Info & Communication — £115m (42%) |
| London & South East share | £948m (60%) | £181m (66%) |
Source: HMRC, Enterprise Investment Scheme and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme statistics, May 2026.
EIS: stabilisation after two down years
The story of the last few releases was decline — EIS funding fell in 2022/23 and again in 2023/24 as higher interest rates repriced venture risk and the exit drought froze recycled capital. The 2024/25 figure of £1,575 million raised by 3,735 companies is, to the pound, level with the prior year.
Flat is not exciting. But after two consecutive falls, flat is a floor — and floors matter. The venture funding cycle turns on confidence, and a stabilised EIS number is the precondition for the recovery the industry has been waiting for.
Worth noting inside the EIS figure: 1,145 companies raised EIS funds for the first time, accounting for £333 million. New-company formation through the scheme remains healthy — the flatness sits in follow-on and later rounds, not at the front door.
SEIS: the 2023 reforms keep compounding
SEIS is the growth story. £276 million raised by 2,430 companies is a 14% increase on 2023/24 — which was itself up 51% on the year before. The April 2023 reforms (company raise limit up from £150,000 to £250,000, investor annual limit doubled to £200,000) continue to pull activity into the seed end of the market.
Strikingly, 1,775 of those companies — nearly three-quarters — were using SEIS for the first time, raising £229 million between them. SEIS is functioning exactly as designed: a first-money scheme for new companies, feeding the pipeline that later becomes EIS demand.
The regional picture: still concentrated, genuinely broadening
London and the South East took 60% of EIS investment and 66% of SEIS — concentration that will surprise nobody. But the movement is at the edges: EIS investment in the North East doubled, SEIS in the East Midlands rose 125%, and the North West, West Midlands, Scotland and the South West all recorded EIS growth. The base numbers outside the South East are small, which makes percentage growth easy — but the direction is consistent across regions, and that has not always been true.
Advance assurance: the forward indicator
Advance assurance applications are the closest thing the dataset has to a leading indicator — companies apply before they raise. Here the 2025/26 first estimates point up:
- EIS: 3,310 applications received, up 4% year on year; 72% approved so far
- SEIS: 4,085 applications received, up 24% year on year; 76% approved so far
A 24% jump in SEIS advance assurance applications suggests the seed pipeline for 2026/27 is building strongly. Our guide to advance assurance explains what the process involves and why investors treat it as a baseline check.
Knowledge-intensive companies: the one to watch
525 knowledge-intensive companies (KICs) raised EIS funds in 2024/25 — an 11% increase. This is the segment most likely to accelerate: the Finance Act 2026 raised company funding limits substantially from April 2026 (annual EIS limits doubling, with KIC lifetime limits rising to £40 million), and those changes will show up in next year's data. If the KIC number jumps in the May 2027 release, the policy will have done what it was designed to do — keep scaling R&D-heavy companies raising under EIS rather than moving abroad or to other capital structures.
What it means for investors
Three takeaways from the 2026 release:
The scheme is structurally healthy. Over £1.8 billion flowed through EIS and SEIS combined in 2024/25, into more than 6,000 companies. Both schemes are legislated to at least 2035.
Seed is where the momentum is. SEIS growth, first-time company numbers and the surge in advance assurance applications all point the same way. For investors, that means more deal flow at the earliest stage — where the reliefs are richest and the risks highest.
Sector and geography concentration persists. Information and communication takes roughly four in ten pounds across both schemes, and the South East dominates. Investors seeking diversification within EIS portfolios have to work for it deliberately.
The next HMRC release is scheduled for Spring 2027. We will update this analysis when it lands.