The Treasury Select Committee has announced an inquiry into the Venture Capital market. It’s welcoming evidence on topics including:

Opportunities for, and threats to, success in the venture capital space.
The effectiveness of current tax incentives and the regulatory regime.
The level of co-operation and integration between start-ups and established industry.
The merits of policy proposals for strengthening the venture capital industry in the United Kingdom, such as:
Opening venture capital investment to pension funds retail products such as ISAs
Generating home-grown talent through the education system
Attracting international talent through the visa system

The deadline for evidence is 7 June 2022 at 5pm.

Alex Davies, founder of venture capital platform Wealth Club, commented:

“This inquiry shows the increasing awareness of Venture Capital as a tool for boosting economic prosperity. Given the benefits of venture capital to society and potential for attractive investment returns, a key focus should be improving access to the sector for retail investors. While more than £2.5 billion is invested into Venture Capital by individual investors each year, it is still a niche activity which means many investors are ignoring the opportunity to invest in some of the UK’s most exciting private companies.

UK venture capital feels like a real coming of age story, and if the government is successful in unlocking new funding from private investment portfolios it has the potential to help innovative companies address many of the major challenges we face today – from climate change to regional inequality. That can only be good news.

We would like to see the cap on SEIS increased from its current £150,000 and more to be done to support the levelling-up agenda across the UK as there is still a large weighting moving into London and the Southeast, which accounted for 68% of all SEIS and 65% of all EIS investment in the 2020/21 tax year.”