Yet again, the EIS navigator team has got its all-star panel to discuss what happened in 2023 and how 2024 is shaping up. Christiana Stewart-Lockhart, Director General of EIS Association, Neil Cole, Head of Private Markets Distribution, UBS Wealth Management, and Kealan Doyle, Director, Symvan Capital join Brian to pick through the events of the past year and the prospects for 2024.

We chat through many areas of interest:

• how has fundraising gone
• whether some VCTs are sitting on too much cash
• how easy is it for companies to raise money
• the need for discipline when making follow-on investments
• whether valuations have bottomed
• how UK venture capital compares with the US and Silicon Valley
• the renewal of the tax advantaged schemes (EIS, VCT and SEIS)
• whether the increase in SEIS limits is having an effect yet
• effect of the new Consumer Duty rules
• whether some risk warnings are flawed

And, as usual, we get our guests to look forward to 2024 and make some predictions.

Links:

EIS Assocation - https://eisa.org.uk/

Symvan Capital - https://www.symvancapital.com/

UBS Wealth Management - https://www.ubs.com/uk/en/wealth-management/home.html

Subscribe to the EIS Navigator podcast on most services here: https://the-eis-navigator.captivate.fm/listen

Bios

Neil Cole

Neil Cole is the Head of Private Markets Distribution at UBS Wealth Management. He has responsibility for the Private Markets product range offered to UBS clients in UK and Jersey, which includes all of the tax efficient investment world including EIS, VCTs, inheritance tax, ISAs, and other relevant product types.

Kealan Doyle

Kealan is CEO and co-founder of Symvan Capital. He has worked with venture capital companies for 15 years, both in a corporate finance advisory capacity as well as a fund manager. He prefers to invest in a wide range of technology companies, but is also very interested in finding synergies within the Symvan portfolio of companies. Company interests include big data analytics, fintech, SaaS, 3D printing and network security. Before his involvement in venture capital investing, Kealan previously lead a structured equity products team at HSBC, and has worked at Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and UBS. Together with Nicholas, he has since founded his own entrepreneurial businesses to focus on VC investing. Kealan holds degrees from the London School of Economics and the University of Toronto.

Christiana Stewart-Lockhart

Christiana Stewart-Lockhart is the Director General of the Enterprise Investment Scheme Association (EISA). She previously spent more than a decade working in Westminster including ten years at the Institute of Economic Affairs. She also founded EPICENTER, a Brussels based network of some of the most respected think tanks from across Europe. Christiana holds a BA in Politics from the University of York. She is a member of TISA’s Children’s Financial Education Policy Council and also sits on the Advisory Board for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship.