Where UK Startup Equity Money Actually Goes: SEIS and EIS by Sector and Region

HMRC's SEIS and EIS statistics show, in granular detail, where UK tax-advantaged startup equity money actually lands once a round closes. It lands overwhelmingly in one sector and one part of the country. Information and Communication companies took more than a third of all EIS money and more than two-fifths of all SEIS money in the latest year on record. London and the South East together took roughly three in every five pounds raised under either scheme. This article works through the official figures, sector by sector and region by region, and sets out what the concentration does and does not mean for a founder deciding whether to raise under SEIS or EIS.

The headline numbers for 2024-25

In the most recent tax year for which HMRC has published full data, 2024-25, EIS companies raised £1,575m across 3,735 companies, and SEIS companies raised £276m across 2,430 companies.¹ Both schemes have grown substantially since they started: EIS from £4m across 75 companies in its first published year, 1993-94; SEIS from £87m across 1,175 companies in its first year, 2012-13.¹

These are UK-wide totals across every qualifying sector and every region. The next two sections break the same £1,575m and £276m down by industry and by the company's registered location.

Where the sector money goes

HMRC publishes a sector breakdown for the three most recent tax years only (2022-23 to 2024-25); the long-run time series above has no sector cut.¹ Within that three-year window, one sector dominates both schemes by a wide margin.

Information and Communication (SIC section J, which covers software, IT services and telecoms) is the largest sector under both schemes, and by a bigger margin under SEIS than under EIS: 41.5% of all SEIS money against 34.9% of all EIS money in 2024-25.¹ Professional, Scientific and Technical activities, the next largest sector, is a much smaller share under SEIS (14.4%) than under EIS (20.9%). The pattern is consistent with SEIS being the earliest-stage scheme: pre-revenue software companies are the archetypal SEIS applicant, more so than the broader professional-services category that includes established consultancy and technical-services businesses.

Sector classification is based on each company's SIC 2007 code as held by HMRC, which is a self-reported classification and can be miscoded, so treat the boundary between adjacent categories (for example Information and Communication versus Professional, Scientific and Technical) as approximate rather than exact.¹ For a fuller sector-by-sector and multi-year breakdown, including every SIC section HMRC publishes, see our UK Tech-Funding Reliefs Index.²

Where the regional money goes

The regional breakdown is based on the postcode of the company's registered office, which is not necessarily where its trading activity, staff, or investors are located.¹ With that caveat, the concentration in London and the South East is stark and consistent across all three years HMRC currently publishes a region cut for.

London on its own accounts for 45.1% of EIS money and 51.8% of SEIS money, meaning that under SEIS a single region holds an outright majority of the entire annual raise.¹ Every region outside London and the South East splits the remaining 34.4% (EIS) or 39.8% (SEIS) between them, with the next largest single region, East of England, taking only 10.0% under EIS and 8.0% under SEIS. Full region-by-region figures for all three published years are set out in the funding reliefs index.²

The registered-office caveat matters here more than it does for the sector data. A company can incorporate with a registered office at a London accountant's or formation agent's address while its founders, product team and customers are based anywhere in the country. HMRC's own methodology note flags exactly this limitation.¹ What the data reliably shows is that the concentration is large and stable across the three years of published detail, not that a company physically outside London and the South East is excluded from raising, or that its registered office is necessarily where the business actually operates.

Advance assurance: the pipeline behind the numbers

Before any of the money above was raised, most of these companies went through HMRC's advance assurance process, the pre-round clearance that tells prospective investors a proposed share issue is likely to qualify. In 2025-26, HMRC received 3,310 EIS advance assurance applications and 4,085 SEIS advance assurance applications.¹

The same-year approval rates, 71.0% for EIS and 76.0% for SEIS, are the figures HMRC can confirm at the time the statistics are compiled.¹ A material share of each year's applications (555 for EIS, 510 for SEIS in 2025-26) are still pending or not pursued when the statistics are published, and HMRC's own data shows that outcomes for recent years get revised upward as pending applications are resolved: in earlier years such as 2022-23, an additional 160 EIS applications and 120 SEIS applications were approved in subsequent years on top of the same-year approvals.¹ Read the latest year's approval rate as a floor, not a final figure. Our advance assurance walkthrough covers what HMRC expects in the application pack and the most common causes of delay or rejection.

What the concentration means, and does not mean, for your raise

None of the sector or regional concentration changes the underlying compliance mechanics of an SEIS or EIS raise. The qualifying tests, on company size, gross assets, trading age and the nature of the trade, apply identically regardless of whether a company sits in Information and Communication or a smaller sector, and regardless of whether its registered office is in London or elsewhere. See our SEIS versus EIS comparison for the full set of qualifying tests side by side.

What the data does mean practically is this: a founder raising outside Information and Communication, or outside London and the South East, is not disqualified by that fact, but is competing for a visibly smaller share of the total annual pool, and may need to work harder to reach the investor audience that the concentration shows is disproportionately based in and around London. That is a fundraising and investor-relations point, not a tax-compliance one. The compliance side, advance assurance, the qualifying tests, and the post-round compliance statement, is identical wherever the company is based and whatever sector it trades in. Our guides to the SEIS company checklist and SEIS1/EIS1 compliance statements cover that mechanical side in full, and our advance assurance service handles the application itself. Founders can also use the SEIS/EIS relief calculator to model investor relief for a specific round, and see our hubs for pre-seed founders, SaaS companies and fintech startups, three of the categories most represented in the Information and Communication and Professional, Scientific and Technical data above.

Sources

1. Enterprise Investment Scheme, Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme and Social Investment Tax Relief statistics: May 2026, HM Revenue and Customs. Published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
2. UK Tech-Funding Reliefs Index, Founder Tax Partners, compiled from the HMRC statistics above. Data pulled 2026-07-23.