For those interested in the UK venture capital industry, particularly the areas that are supported by government schemes. These include the Enterprise Investment Scheme, EIS, Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme, or SEIS, and Venture Capital Trusts. This means we are looking at small, growth companies - often at the startup stage.

We interview leading people in the industry, whether fund managers, company founders or experts from other service providers. The aim is to dig deeply into topics, getting away from the promotional material that predominates elsewhere. Although we’re not going to ignore the pandemic, venture capital investing is a long-term endeavour and we will focus on topics that are relevant at any time. The first few episodes include discussions of angel investing, intellectual property and accelerators. We’re aiming for a new episode every two weeks.

Your host, Brian Moretta, is Head of Tax Enhanced Services at Hardman & Co. The latter a supplier of independent research in the industry and he has examined many EIS funds and companies. His background is an actuary turned fund manager who then moved into equity research. He also has some academic chops, being an Honorary Fellow at Heriot-Watt University where he does some occasional teaching. He has always had a strong interest in getting underneath companies, getting beyond the superficial and understanding how they really work and finds this space fascinating. Some of this is because transparency is hard, some because the industry is not well understood. This podcast is an attempt to shine a bit more light on what is going on.

Every episode will have show notes at hardmanandco.com/podcast. If you want to contact us or give feedback, whether about the podcast or anything else you can email us at [email protected]. We want this to be helpful for listeners so any constructive feedback is welcome. We really hope you enjoy the podcast!