SEIS Statistics 2026: What the HMRC Numbers Say

The headline SEIS statistics for the 2024 to 2025 tax year: around 2,430 companies raised £276 million under the scheme, up 14% on the year before, and HMRC approved roughly 76% of advance assurance requests. Behind the headline, the numbers describe a scheme that has settled into its post-2023 shape: bigger rounds, a first-time-raiser majority, and the same stubborn concentration in software and the South East. Here is the year in data, read properly.

The headline SEIS statistics

£276 million across roughly 2,430 companies works out at an average raise of about £113,000 per company, still comfortably below the £250,000 cap. That gap matters: it says the typical SEIS round is sized by what founders can raise, not by what the scheme allows, and that the 2023 limit increases (cap up from £150,000, investor limit doubled to £200,000) are still feeding through rather than binding. The 14% year-on-year growth extends the climb that began when the limits changed, and it stands out against the flatter picture in the neighbouring EIS scheme over the same period.

All of these figures live, with every prior year and our sourcing, on the permanent SEIS statistics hub, which we refresh on each HMRC release.

A first-time-raiser scheme, as designed

Around 1,775 of the year’s companies were raising under SEIS for the first time, and they accounted for £229 million of the total. In other words, roughly three-quarters of the companies and over 80% of the money involved first-time raisers. That is the scheme working as designed: SEIS is meant to be the first external equity a company ever takes, with EIS picking up the later rounds. A scheme dominated by repeat top-ups would be a scheme drifting from its purpose; this one is not.

Where the money went

The sector table repeats its perennial verdict: information and communication took the largest share, around 42% of the money. Software’s dominance is structural rather than fashionable, because the scheme’s small-company conditions fit software startups almost perfectly, a fit we unpack in SEIS for software startups. Geographically, London and the South East accounted for around 66% of investment. Two-thirds of a national scheme flowing into one corner of the country is the statistic policy people quote most, and the regional angel-network initiatives announced in recent years are, in effect, an attempt to move it.

The advance assurance filter

In 2025 to 2026, HMRC received about 4,085 SEIS advance assurance requests and approved around 3,090, roughly 76%. Read the gap plainly: a quarter of applications do not get through, and the common failure reasons are prosaic (excluded activities, incomplete applications, risk-to-capital doubts) rather than exotic. The approval rate has been broadly stable, which tells founders the bar is predictable: prepare properly and the odds are good. What preparation means in practice is the subject of the advance assurance guide, and the volume arithmetic (4,085 requests against 2,430 funded companies) is a reminder that assurance is the start of a funnel, not a guarantee of a closed round.

The bigger picture

Zoom out and the scale becomes the story. Since the venture schemes began, SEIS and EIS together have channelled around £35.5 billion into more than 62,000 companies, and independent research has found that close to half of the UK’s unicorns took EIS money somewhere on the way up. SEIS is the earliest rung of that ladder. A single year’s £276 million looks modest next to the venture capital industry; thirty years of compounding pipeline does not.

What the numbers mean for 2026 decisions

For founders: the scheme has capacity and a predictable gate. The average raise sitting at less than half the cap says headroom is rarely the constraint; preparation is. For investors: growth in company numbers means more deal flow, but the sector and geography concentrations mean a passively assembled portfolio will be two-thirds software-in-London by default; diversification takes intent, a point the success rates analysis extends into portfolio arithmetic. For advisers: 14% growth in scheme usage is 14% growth in clients who will ask the questions in our scenarios guide. The next HMRC release lands in May 2027; the statistics hub will be updated the week it does.

Sources

HMRC, EIS and SEIS official statistics (May 2026 release, covering 2024 to 2025); HMRC advance assurance management information; independent unicorn research as compiled on our statistics hub. Figures rounded as published; correct as at 17 July 2026.