£100m investment supporting UK startups and scale-ups announced

The UK Government has recently announced a new entrepreneurship tax relief package, unlocking around £100m in private investment per year.

First touted during the 2025 Autumn Budget, the package aims to help startups and high-growth companies attract investors, retain talent, and scale their business further.

This package is part of the Government’s broader push to make the UK a more attractive place to start a business and scale further in the country. Through expanding existing tax incentives and adding new support measures, it hopes to get more money flowing into innovative companies and help them grow faster.

What is the entrepreneurship tax relief package?

The entrepreneurship tax relief package offers tax incentives to encourage private investment in UK startups and scale-ups.

The package includes an expansion of the number of companies allowed to participated in the Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) scheme, which lets companies offer tax-advantaged shares to employees. As of 2024, 5,200 businesses are running an EMI scheme, but this change means that more companies will be able to offer this talent-retaining work perk. 

Additionally, the amount a business can raise through both the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) is being doubled, offering tax relief to investors willing to back early-stage and high-growth businesses.

Wider support measures include the British Business Bank’s Five Year Strategic Plan, which aims to unlock around £26bn of private capital, as well as £13bn of BBB’s funding. 

A three-year exemption from Stamp Duty Reserve Tax has also been introduced for companies listing on UK markets, which is designed to encourage more scale-ups to stay and grow in the country.

EMI reforms aim to boost talent retention at scale-ups

A key part of the package is the reforms to the EMI scheme. This includes raising the gross assets threshold from £30m to £120m, while also doubling both the employee cap (from 250 to 500) and the share option limit (from £3m to £6m). 

These changes are expected to support around 1,800 high-growth scale-ups across sectors, including fintech, life sciences, and I over the next five years – benefiting roughly 70,000 employees.

“The changes to the EMI scheme are particularly important,” Eva Barboni, Executive Director at Enterprise Britain, said in the Government’s press release. 

“Talent is the lifeblood of high-growth firms, and widening access to share ownership will help more British scale-ups attract and retain the people they need to compete globally. It will also help ensure that the benefits of those companies’ success are shared more widely.”

EIS and VCT changes target investment slowdown

As well as changes to employee incentives, the Government is also expanding investment schemes aimed at increasing the flow of capital into early-stage and high-growth businesses.

The lifetime investment limit for companies under the EIS and VCT schemes will double to £24m, with the annual limit rising to £10m. The gross assets threshold will also increase to £30m before share issuance and £35m after.

This comes as funding under EIS (as of the 2023-24 tax year) raised a total of just over £1m – a decrease of 20% compared to the previous year. Similarly, the amount raised under VCTs declined by 17% within the same tax year.

As part of the VCT reforms, tax relief for investors will be reduced from 30% to 20% to better align with EIS and encourage funds to pursue higher-growth opportunities.

Carolyn Dawson, CEO at Founders Forum Group, comments: “The UK has always been a brilliant place to start a company. 

“But keeping Britain’s best companies at home requires an ongoing commitment from all of us to back British success stories. When British innovation thrives, it translates directly into better jobs, higher wages, and a more resilient economy for everyone.”