Are you a founder looking for SEIS investment? Finding the funds that are actually active, and actually a fit, takes longer than it should.
Here are the most active SEIS funds in the UK for early-stage companies, followed by the pre-seed funds that write the earliest institutional cheques.
Fuel Ventures
Marketplaces, software and platforms · Early stage
Fuel Ventures is a
venture capital fund making early-stage investments in marketplaces, software and platform companies, with a stated preference for fast-growing businesses and strong founders. Its portfolio includes Moteefe, a social commerce platform, and Shift, a B2C on-demand logistics platform for movers.
Oxford Technology
Novel science and technology · Combined SEIS and EIS · Up to £150k
Oxford Technology runs a three-year combined SEIS and EIS fund for early-stage companies, typically investing up to £150,000 of seed funding into SEIS-qualifying businesses. It looks for companies that incorporate, in its own words, “genuinely novel science or technology” and that disrupt existing sectors or create new ones.
Portfolio companies include Lightpoint Medical, developing technology to detect cancer in real time; Entia, building virtual oncology solutions for healthcare professionals; and Expend, which automates spend and expense management for SMEs and larger companies.
TrueSight Ventures
Technology · Nordics and UK · Pre-seed and seed
TrueSight Ventures invests at pre-seed and
seed stage across Europe, with its SEIS fund focused on the Nordic and UK markets. The thesis is straightforward: founders solving real problems with technology.
SFC Capital
Generalist · SEIS fund, EIS fund and angel network
SFC Capital has made over 400 investments since 2012 and describes itself as the most active seed investor in the UK. It runs a SEIS fund, an EIS fund and an angel network, so a founder can be matched to whichever vehicle fits the round.
What sets it apart is the length of the relationship. SFC backs companies from the first SEIS round through to exit, which means it has a reason to keep helping long after the money has landed.
Mercia Asset Management
Technology · Hybrid EIS and SEIS
Mercia Asset Management is an early-stage technology investor that treats EIS and SEIS as a serious vehicle for professional investors rather than a tax afterthought. In early 2012 it brought the first hybrid EIS and SEIS fund to market.
Symvan Capital
B2B enterprise software · SEIS Fund 3
Symvan Capital is an award-winning
venture capital fund focused on technology startups. Symvan Technology runs its SEIS fund, SEIS Fund 3, which is dedicated to software companies selling to B2B enterprise customers.
Jenson Funding Partners
Tech-enabled, all sectors · Running since 2012
Jenson Funding Partners invests in SEIS-eligible startups, with a focus on tech-enabled businesses across every sector. It is one of the longest-running SEIS funds, established in 2012, with more than ten SEIS exits behind it. Its portfolio includes The Seam, Let’s COOE, Caterpillar and Cocoon.
Guinness Ventures
Generalist · Guinness Founders SEIS · Around ten investments per portfolio
Guinness Ventures runs the Guinness Founders SEIS alongside its EIS and VCT funds, and sits inside Guinness Global Investors, which manages around £8 billion across a team of more than eighty in Westminster. The SEIS fund is built from deal flow introduced by its own network of company founders, and targets roughly ten investments per portfolio across technology, education, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, leisure and food and drink.
It is a generalist rather than a sector specialist, which makes it worth a look if your company does not fit the software-only funds.
Pre-seed funds: the first institutional cheque
Everything above is a SEIS fund, which means the individual investors behind it claim SEIS relief on what they put in. The funds below are not. They invest institutional money, so there is no SEIS relief for their own investors – but they write the earliest cheques into UK companies, often alongside a SEIS round, and at this stage they are worth talking to for the same reason.
Octopus First Cheque
B2B software, fintech, health and deep tech · Idea and pre-product stage
Octopus First Cheque is the pre-seed arm of Octopus Ventures, one of the most active early-stage investors in Europe. It writes the first institutional cheque into UK companies at idea and pre-product stage.
The draw for a founder is what sits behind it: the wider Octopus platform can keep following on through
Series A and beyond, so an early cheque is not a one-off.
Alator Capital
AI, fintech, proptech and consumer · Fundraising advisory · Our sister company
Alator Capital is Entrepreneurs Collective’s sister company, so treat this entry as the disclosure it is. It works with companies at the intersection of technology and a handful of verticals – AI, fintech, proptech and contech, consumer and commerce – and its team is made up of investors and operators rather than pure financiers.
It is not a fund. Alator runs raises on behalf of founders, building long-term relationships with management teams instead of taking a position and waiting. That makes it the right call at a different moment from the funds above: when the round has outgrown SEIS scale and needs a structured process across VCs, family offices and institutions.
Want to meet SEIS investors?
Entrepreneurs Collective is a community of over 10,000 tech founders and investors. Our events regularly feature investors from the funds on this page – judging our pitch competitions, speaking on our panels, or simply in the room at our lunches.
If you are raising a SEIS round now, the fastest way to get in front of them is to pitch at one of our events.
