DSW Ventures

How our Seed EIS Fund 2 might qualm your Budget nightmares... There’s no shortage of predictions about what the Budget will say but, as leaks from the Treasury show, not even the decision-makers are close to an actual decision. Stating the obvious, though, it’s pretty clear that taxes are going up and, judging by the speculation, we’ll be paying more in CGT. One tax relief that doesn’t seem to be in the spotlight is Seed EIS relief. And again stating the obvious, the bigger the tax bill, the more worthwhile the tax relief. Under the existing rules: ✅ up to £200,000 can be invested each year to shelter £100,000 of income tax each year (double both figures if you have prior-year capacity) ✅ that same investment could also offset up to £24,000 of CGT ✅ gains are GGT-free and ✅ If an investment fails, up to a further £45,000 of income tax could be sheltered through loss relief for AR tax payers And that’s at current rates. If – as is widely speculated – CGT rates rise, then the potential tax savings could increase even further. Our pipeline for Fund 2 is strong: we’re already at termsheet stage for three investments in high-tech regional companies where pricing and structuring is sound and the businesses are of high quality with good leadership. If you have any questions about Fund 2, please get in touch with Keith Benson or any of your usual contacts at DSW Ventures. You can learn more about the fund here: https://lnkd.in/ey_s5Gat Remember: we’re not tax advisers, this isn’t tax advice, and you should take your own professional advice. Remember also: there’s no point investing for the tax breaks if you lose your investment, so think carefully about who you choose to invest with. Early stage technology companies are high risk and your entire capital is at risk.

Applications for the DSW Ventures one-year internship starting in July 2025 are now open! This is a great opportunity to gain hands-on venture capital experience working with a team of senior experts. The successful applicant will be taking over from Jessica Buckthorpe of The University of Manchester - big shoes to fill! For more information see our website: https://lnkd.in/dh-6TsYt #CareersInFinance #PlacementYear #StudentExperience

Last week, Keith Benson had the pleasure of being a panelist at Tech Companies to Watch 2024, hosted by Prolific North and Sedulo. Keith discussed the do’s and don’ts of raising capital for growth, alongside fellow panelists, Helen Oldham, Elizabeth Young, and Andy Barrow. It was a fantastic discussion and a brilliant event, with insightful topics and opportunities to meet like-minded professionals!

Over the past few months, we have been revisiting our Investor Insights series and discussing our differences of opinion with Golden Triangle standard practice and aspects of the University Spinout Investment Terms guide. During a recent conversation with an old friend in the heart of the Golden Triangle, we gained insight into why they operate the way they do. In this blog, David Smith delves into the benefits of establishing a supportive ecosystem for these spin-outs, including access to resources and mentorship, which can lead to successful scaling and impactful solutions, and the strategic considerations in launching these ventures. #Spinouts https://lnkd.in/eJKBViKN

🍂 October continues to be an incredibly busy month at DSW Ventures! 🍂 Last week, I had the pleasure of joining Ulster University at the INVENT competition awards, organised by Catalyst, where I got a glimpse at some of the exciting technologies being commercialised in Northern Ireland. A huge congratulations to Dia Beta Labs Ltd for winning the overall competition award! 🏆 It was also great to catch up with some of the region's early stage investors, including Clarendon Fund Managers, Techstart Ventures LLP and QUBIS Ltd, who are shining a light on the fantastic opportunities across Northern Ireland. 🚂 Next stop: Yorkshire! 🚂 Next Tuesday, I'll be attending the Lifted Ventures Athena Festival in Leeds, where I'll be taking part in a morning panel session chaired by Jordan Dargue, discussing raising investment from a VC. Then on Thursday, it's on to the Guildhall in York to take part in British Business Bank's first Meet the Funder event in the city, hosted by Cat Smith. Please do reach out or look out for me if you are attending either of these events next week - I'd love to connect!

Emma Cassidy and Keith Benson had the pleasure of chatting with Martin SFP Bryant of PreSeed Now last week about the challenges and opportunities of #earlystage #investing. Given how much certain individuals enjoy the sound of their own voice (naming no names) it was an excellent conversation! It's reproduced here with the kind permission of Martin 👍 👍 👍 https://lnkd.in/eppuiVtG

Thank you to PreSeed Now for doing a follow-up piece on DSW Ventures portfolio company InvenireX. We met and invested in Dan Todd's business after reading the company's first article on Martin SFP Bryant's newsletter. It's really exciting to read about the company's progress outside of the boardroom! Some highlights from Dan below: "We were a team of one or two people [a year ago] and now we have six full-time staff. We’ve built four fully-functional machines. One patent filed, and two more on the way. And we’re running commercial pilots." PCR is the current gold standard of finding the ‘needle in the haystack’. And it's kind of sloppy technically, and what it does is it finds the needle in the haystack by making more needles... So we filed the patent for InvenireX's "Nanite" technology - we design and make programmable DNA. We fight fire with fire, we engineer particular pieces of DNA to go after that ‘needle in the haystack’ to and capture it. Well done Dan and team - keep up the great work!! 👏 👏 👏 👏 Full article here (subscription required!) https://lnkd.in/eR-CTdsb

Exciting times at DSW Ventures... Yesterday we held an investor breakfast event to discuss our approach to #seis investing and launch fundraising for our next SEIS Fund. It's a very timely event - we expect SEIS to be even more relevant in coming months, and our #investment pipeline is bigger than it has ever been with some really exciting breakthrough technologies - all as a result of innovation in the regions! Thank you to all who attended both in person and online! #growth #technology #regionalinvestment

Well done Hikers 👏 👏 👏 👏

We have just led a pre-seed investment into TheNextLevel, an innovative platform set to revolutionise customer engagement for online brands! TheNextLevel is pioneering Community Commerce – empowering online brands to build and cultivate vibrant communities next to their mobile storefronts, enhancing customer loyalty and driving sustainable growth. With Formula 1 rising star Oscar Piastri as their first brand partner, TheNextLevel is already proving the power of its platform. We've backed Paul Rawlings and Ionut Vasiliu and their vision of Community Commerce to fuel development of their product and help them expand their groundbreaking partner portal. https://lnkd.in/ePnsWYi7 #CommunityCommerce #ManchesterTech #VentureCapital #Investment #SEIS