EIS Index has launched a market intelligence platform focused on the UK Enterprise Investment Scheme, describing it as the first structured platform dedicated solely to the EIS market.
The launch comes as the scheme remains a significant source of funding for smaller UK businesses, with Britain directing GBP £1.6 billion a year into nearly 4,000 EIS companies. The platform starts with almost 2,000 registered users and indexed data covering 628 UK companies linked to EIS activity.
EIS Index is targeting investors, advisers and founders seeking a single source of information on EIS-eligible companies and fundraising activity. Its data is verified against the Companies House register through the Companies House API, and its tools are designed to help users find companies by sector, stage, raise size and EIS status.
Users can track live and upcoming fundraising rounds, compare companies and raises side by side, create watchlists and receive filing alerts. Founders can also claim company profiles and add information to improve investor discovery.
Market backdrop
The platform enters the market as EIS remains economically important but investment activity has weakened. Research cited by EIS Index shows EIS-backed businesses created more than 386,000 jobs in 2023, while those companies generated GBP £192 billion in revenue between 2014 and 2023.
Against that backdrop, HMRC statistics for 2023/24 showed a 20% decline in EIS investment deployment despite reforms that increased investment limits and widened qualifying thresholds. EIS Index links that decline to poor market visibility and fragmented access to opportunities.
A survey by Sustainable Wealth Group of 100 investors found nearly half saw a need for a centralised EIS database, pointing to a transparency gap in a market that has often depended on closed networks and manual research.
The tax treatment attached to EIS investments has also added to investor interest. EIS investments can qualify for Business Relief, and changes due from 6 April 2026 mean qualifying unquoted shares will attract 100% relief on the first GBP £2.5 million of an individual's combined allowance and 50% above that, subject to conditions and a two-year holding period.
Within the same framework, AIM-listed shares attract relief at 50%. Those rules have kept EIS in focus for investors assessing tax-efficient structures as inheritance tax thresholds remain frozen and some other reliefs become less generous.
Data focus
EIS Index is presenting the service as an attempt to bring more structure to a part of private capital that has historically been hard to search and compare. Access is currently by application while the dataset expands, and the business is offering tiers ranging from free discovery to paid intelligence products.
The company also covers the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme market through its broader research and analysis work. The launch of the core index, however, is focused on EIS companies and the fundraising activity around them.
Harvey Knight, Founder, EIS Index, explained the rationale for the launch. "Investors can now discover, compare, and monitor EIS-relevant companies with the same kind of intelligence they expect in every other asset class. EIS and SEIS have directed £34 billion to 59,000 UK businesses, with nearly half of the country's unicorns benefiting from EIS support. A market of this magnitude warrants infrastructure that meets the expectations associated with these figures," said Knight.
Those figures underline the scale of the market EIS Index is trying to serve. By framing EIS and SEIS as a long-established channel for startup and growth funding, the business argues that structured data tools are overdue in a segment that has become more complex as policy changes have broadened eligibility.
EIS Index expects a phased expansion in coverage and onboarding across the UK private capital market during 2026. The immediate test will be whether investors and advisers use the platform to navigate a market that remains large in economic terms but harder to track than public equities or mainstream funds.
It launches with 628 indexed companies and almost 2,000 registered users, giving it an initial foothold in a market where visibility has become a central concern.