Venture Capital Investment Opportunities

GCV offers a small number of carefully selected venture capital opportunities each year, focused on early-stage UK businesses in fintech, SaaS, medtech and other technology-enabled sectors. Most are structured to qualify for SEIS or EIS tax relief.

SEIS-stage businesses are often supported by GCV Labs, our in-house venture builder, where we work alongside founders on product, go-to-market and commercial strategy from day one. EIS opportunities are businesses with an established trading history and a credible path to scale, either graduating from our SEIS portfolio or carefully sourced externally.

Current opportunities are listed above, and full access is available via the GCV Invest Platform.

SEIS supports the very earliest-stage companies and offers higher tax relief in exchange for higher risk. EIS supports companies that are further along, with lower but still substantial relief.

• SEIS: 50% income tax relief on investments of up to £200,000 a year. Companies must have been trading for less than three years and can raise up to £250,000 under the scheme.
• EIS: 30% income tax relief on up to £1 million a year (£2 million if at least £1 million goes into knowledge-intensive companies). From April 2026, companies can raise up to £10 million a year under EIS, or £20 million for knowledge-intensive companies.

Both require you to hold the shares for at least three years to keep the relief, and both offer tax-free growth, loss relief and inheritance tax relief.

Read more in SEIS vs EIS: which scheme, and when.

Returns vary from company to company: some will outperform, some will return less than expected, and some may fail. That's why building a portfolio across several companies is one of the best ways to work towards attractive average returns and reducng your overall tax burden.

GCV targets opportunities with the potential to deliver around 10x returns over a 3 to 7 year holding period, alongside the associated EIS and SEIS tax reliefs.

Some of our past exits show that range in practice. Investors in QikServe exited with returns of up to 3x, while investors in Intelligence Fusion saw returns of up to 14x. 

Not every investment delivers a return, targets aren't guaranteed and past performance isn't a reliable guide to future results. SEIS and EIS reliefs can improve your after-tax outcome, but they don't remove the risk of loss.

Venture capital is high risk: many startups fail, and you should be prepared to lose your investment.

Experienced investors typically manage risk in three ways: only investing money they can afford to lock away, spreading it across a few companies rather than one, and using SEIS and EIS reliefs to reduce the downside whilst benefiting from an early payout.

For example, a £10,000 SEIS investment costs £5,000 after income tax relief. If the company fails, loss relief can recover up to £2,250, limiting the net loss to £2,750 for this example. The same investment under EIS would limit the net loss to £3,850.

Part of our strategy aims to extend that risk mitigation further. Rather than offer a high volume of deals, we back a small number of businesses each year, so each one gets more of our time, attention and support. Less than 1% of the deals we come across ever make it to the platform. 

Many of our portfolio companies are built with the support of GCV Labs, our in-house venture builder, where our team works hands-on with founders on product, go-to-market and commercial strategy from day one, tackling the issues that most often hold early-stage businesses back.

With a team passionate about what we do, many invest in the deals we offer, so we're committed to each company's success alongside you.

This doesn't remove the risk, but the model is designed to give every business we back a stronger chance of success.

Deal-by-deal investing means choosing each company you back individually, rather than handing a lump sum to a fund manager who allocates it across a portfolio on your behalf.

GCV Invest operates deal by deal, so you see the full details of every opportunity and decide for yourself whether to invest.

The practical differences come down to three things:

• Control: you pick the companies, sectors and rounds that suit you, instead of accepting whatever a fund manager selects.
• Timing: you build a portfolio gradually as new opportunities go live, rather than committing all your capital upfront.
• Concentration: funds spread capital across many companies and typically target more modest multiples; a deal-by-deal model concentrates on fewer, more closely assessed businesses with higher return potential.

The trade-off is that you get diversification only if you build it yourself, so backing several companies over time matters more here than it does in a fund. Many investors use both approaches together.

There's more detail in our article on why investors may choose deal-by-deal investments over traditional funds.

If a company qualifies for SEIS or EIS and you hold your shares for at least three years, the main reliefs for the 2026/27 tax year are:

• Income tax relief: 50% for SEIS and 30% for EIS, which can also be carried back to the previous tax year.
• Tax-free growth: no capital gains tax when you sell the shares at a profit.
• CGT deferral (EIS) and reinvestment relief (SEIS): defer a gain from another asset by reinvesting it into EIS shares, or exempt 50% of a gain reinvested into SEIS shares.
• Loss relief: if a company fails, the loss after income tax relief can be offset against your income or capital gains.
• Inheritance tax relief: shares held for at least two years can qualify for Business Relief. From 6 April 2026, 100% relief applies within a combined £2.5 million allowance, with 50% relief above it.

Our EIS calculator and SEIS calculator show how they could apply to you.

GCV doesn't charge investors joining or upfront fees. We're paid on success: when a company exits, we take 7.5% of the investment gain.

Because our fee comes out of your profit, and our team invests its own money in every deal, we only do well when you do.

Membership of GCV Invest is free, and you can apply online in a few steps. Create your account, then:

1. Complete identity checks (KYC and anti-money laundering), carried out in real time during your application.
2. Confirm your investor category and complete a short appropriateness questionnaire.
3. Once approved, access full details of each SEIS and EIS opportunity, invest through the GCV Invest portal and track your portfolio with regular performance updates.