Data
SEIS Statistics
The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme in numbers, refreshed each year from the HMRC release and independent research. Last updated July 2026, covering the 2024 to 2025 tax year.
SEIS in 2024 to 2025
In the 2024 to 2025 tax year, around 2,430 companies raised a total of £276 million under SEIS. That is up 14% on the previous year, when 2,310 companies raised £242 million, a rise HMRC links to the expansion of the scheme limits in April 2023.
Around 1,775 of those companies were raising under SEIS for the first time, accounting for £229 million. Companies in the information and communication sector took the largest share, about 42% of the money, and, as with most UK investment, London and the South East accounted for the majority, around 66%.
Advance assurance
Advance assurance is the informal check founders ask HMRC for before they raise. In 2025 to 2026, HMRC received about 4,085 SEIS advance assurance requests and approved around 3,090 of them, roughly 76%, a sign of steady demand at the earliest stage.
Our read on the numbers
The direction of travel matters as much as the totals. Since the limits were raised in 2023, both the number of companies using SEIS and the money flowing through it have grown, while the related EIS scheme has been flatter. To us that says the reforms are working where they were aimed, at the very start, and that appetite for backing the earliest-stage companies remains strong.
SEIS Investments policy desk
The bigger picture
Zoom out and the scale is clear. Since the 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 unicorn companies had received EIS investment along the way. SEIS is the earliest rung on that ladder.
Every year’s HMRC release
Sources: HMRC EIS and SEIS statistics and independent research from Beauhurst. Figures are updated when HMRC publishes its annual release, usually in May.