The essential purpose of EIS is to serve as a conduit for early-stage investment into smaller and younger UK companies that have high growth potential. As is widely acknowledged, such companies are at the mercy of a significant “finance gap” — meaning many promising businesses struggle to obtain the funding they need to survive and thrive.
EIS’s counterpart, the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), explicitly targets start-ups and companies in the very early stages of development. EIS is geared towards larger and more mature firms, although these are still relatively small and young in the context of the UK’s business and corporate landscape.
