The EISA Awards are the most prestigious event in our calendar, held at the House of Lords in Westminster, London.
Each year, we celebrate the outstanding achievements of participants in the EIS and SEIS ecosystem.
We recognise the founders, investors and advisers who are driven by the common goal of supporting entrepreneurs across the UK to drive innovation and economic growth.
The 2024 EISA Ceremony
Our 2024 Awards ceremony was held on Wednesday, 19th June 2024 at the House of Lords, Westminster, London.
You can explore all the images from the evening here.
The 2024 EISA Awards Winners
Explore the 2024 winners and highly commended nominees below.
If you would like to know about the 2024 shortlisters, you can read about them all here.
If you would like to read the stories of the 2023 winners, you can do so here.
Best SEIS Investee Company
WINNER: MyARC
MyARC is a fitness app for content creators and their fans. They enable the world’s top fitness content creators to train their community interactively from anywhere in the world.
HIGH COMMENDATION: BIOVIT
With organic vitamins and minerals for fortified foods, BIOVIT provides plant-derived, multi-nutrient blends for a variety of products, from snack bars to beverages — creating a sustainable alternative to synthetic nutrients.
Diversity Champion
WINNER: Jenson Funding Partners
Established in 2012, Jenson Funding Partners is a premier venture capital firm in the UK, specialising in early-stage growth investment with a focus on ESG and impact. Their Fund invests in innovative and disruptive early stage businesses and supports them on their journey.
HIGH COMMENDATION: Female Founders Rise
Female Founders Rise is a community of 4500 female and non-binary founders building growth businesses. Their mission – empowering women to build successful businesses together. Connecting female founders throughout the UK. Creating a mega network of incredible women.
Best SEIS Investment Manager
WINNER: Jenson Funding Partners
Established in 2012, Jenson Funding Partners is a premier venture capital firm in the UK, specialising in early-stage growth investment with a focus on ESG and impact. Their Fund invests in innovative and disruptive early stage businesses and supports them on their journey.
HIGH COMMENDATION: Fuel Ventures
Fuel Ventures is an early-stage investor in early stage technology and digital companies. They invest in and grow great companies with big potential. Their primary focus is on building proven business models in the online and mobile space that has the ability to scale quickly and have international growth potential.
Best EIS/SEIS Tax Adviser
WINNER: Shoosmiths
Shoosmiths is a law firm clients choose for excellent service, incisive thinking and above all for their ability to focus on what matters. They support some of the world’s most exciting and ambitious businesses. The FT recognises them as one of Europe’s most innovative law firms.
WINNER: Philip Hare & Associates
Philip Hare & Associates LLP is a tax consultancy business which specialises in the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), Seed EIS, Venture Capital Trusts (VCT) and Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR). They advise small and medium sized companies and their investors in respect of the tax relief available for investment and the conditions that need to be met by the company and the investor.
HIGH COMMENDATION: Sapphire Capital Partners
Sapphire Capital Partners are a multi-award-winning investment manager and consultancy based in both London and Belfast. They offer a diverse range of services, including Fund investment management, SEIS and EIS support, Property Funds, Investor documentation and business planning and R&D tax credit application advisory.
Best Financial Planner
WINNER: Andrew Elson, Berry & Oak
Andrew is the founder of Berry & Oak and one of a very small number of Independent Financial Advisers who is both a Chartered Financial Planner and a Certified Financial Planner™ professional. His goal is to help his clients create their financial plan so that they can live the life they want to lead – and then make sure they stay on track and live it!
HIGH COMMENDATION: Adam Young, Smythe House
Adam is Director, Strategic Financial Planning at Smythe House. He works with scale-up businesses and founders contemplating business exits. He offers perspective, clarity, governance, and education to guide them through crucial financial decisions, ensuring they are well-equipped to navigate the complexities of their financial journey.
Best EIS Investment Manager
WINNER: Par Equity
Par Equity is a venture capital investor focused on businesses with global ambitions, and innovative technology at their core. Par Equity’s model integrates the insights and experiences of industry insiders into every facet of the investment process.
HIGH COMMENDATION: Praetura Investments
Praetura Investments offer a range of award-winning investments across venture capital, commercial and asset finance which support SMEs across the UK.They believe in offering founders, advisers and investors more than money which means a commitment to creating an unrivalled experience for their investors and advisers.
Best Newcomer
WINNER: Empirical Ventures
Empirical Ventures leads pre-seed and seed rounds for deep science startups that are creating century-defining technologies. They invest in scientific breakthroughs that together advance human capability and create financial returns.
HIGH COMMENDATION: Waterspring Ventures
Waterspring Ventures facilitate and fund investments which enable growth for businesses in Wales and the South West of England, unlocking economic benefits for entrepreneurs, employees and local communities.
EISA Impact Award
WINNER: Foresight Group with The Foresight WAE Technology EIS Fund
An Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), investing into early-stage, unquoted companies that are developing disruptive technology and pioneering innovation.
HIGH COMMENDATION: SIS Ventures
SIS Ventures is an FCA-regulated venture capital investor with a clear impact investment thesis and framework. SIS Ventures seeks to provide investment to innovative, early-stage Scottish companies with global ambitions.
Best EIS/SEIS Legal or Regulatory
WINNER: RW Blears
RW Blears are a specialist law firm which provides corporate, funds, regulatory and tax advice. They act for emerging and institutional fund managers investing in private capital markets, venture-backed high growth companies, entrepreneurs, platform operators and angel syndicates.
HIGH COMMENDATION: Adempi Associates
Adempi’s compliance consultancy blends smart use of technology, direct access to expertise, and a focus on helping firms to secure real value from their consultancy spend. They work in financial services.
Best EIS Investee Company
WINNER: Carcinotech
Carcinotech is a MedTech company with expertise in manufacturing 3D printed micro-tumours using patient-derived biopsies, primary cells, immune cells and cancer stem cells. Carcinotech’s advanced models provide a platform for rapid, ethical, and accurate drug screening, pre-clinical and personalised medicine testing.
HIGH COMMENDATION: Bright Network
Bright Network’s mission is to provide better matchmaking between employers and graduates. By combining rich data, technology and analytics with their knowledge and insights, they create highly targeted and personalised experiences, interactions and opportunities to connect students and their future employers.
Best EIS/SEIS Advocate
WINNER: SeedLegals
The SeedLegals platform automates tasks to transform the way businesses raise investment, hire and retain talent, and grow faster. They guide, educate and empower startups and small businesses to automate the legals they need, dramatically cutting down the time and expense companies used to spend with traditional lawyers and accountants.
HIGH COMMENDATION: James D’Mello & Katie Hopkin, Fuel Ventures
At Fuel, James leads the IFA/Strategic Partners distribution team.
Katie’s recent focus has been in Tax Efficient Investments both at Platforms and Funds. Katie’s role within the IFA distribution team involves managing relationships with IFAs, wealth managers and financial institutions.
Entrepreneur of the Year
WINNER: Ishani Malhotra, Carcinotech
Ishani Malhotra is the CEO and founder of Carcinotech. She was recently recognised as one of the 35 rising stars by Scottish Business Insider under 35, won AccelerateHER 2022 awards for Science and MedTech and won the Female Entrepreneur of the Year award at The Scottish SME Business Awards 2022.
HIGH COMMENDATION: Kate Jarvis, Fifth Dimension AI
Co founder of Fifth Dimension AI Dr. Kate Jarvis is a Large Language Model wizard with a PhD in Linguistics from Stanford University. Spent the past 12 years designing Machine Learning-powered products and bringing them to market, in CPTO roles in varied sectors.
The EISA Awards Judges
EISA Awards winners are decided by independent expert judges across the ecosystem. They are assigned to judge relevant categories for their extensive expertise. These judges are kept anonymous until the ceremony.
EISA Awards Sponsorship
Thank you to our sponsors for their wonderful support. If you have a sponsorship enquiry for next year, please reach out to olivia@eisa.org.uk.