Andrew Aldridge, Partner at Deepbridge: The latest lockdown represents yet another major setback for many business sectors, SMEs and workers

Dear Kizzi,

Sadly the latest lockdown will come as yet another setback for many business sectors, SMEs and workers. The Government has worked hard in an incredibly difficult environment to create a capital lifeline to many SMEs via the BBLS and CBILS but now we would urge that there needs to be even greater support – both via financial and via sustainable growth initiatives. Agile companies, which have survived 2020 and provide a product or service which has a genuine medium to long term solution to a recognised problem, will continue to develop and grow. As we witnessed last year, we believe there should continue to be a genuine need for the research, development and/or products such companies are producing.

The types of companies we support, being innovative technology and life sciences companies, are by their very nature expected to be highly innovative and are therefore are generally focussed on addressing long-term market needs. Of course, the life sciences sector has perhaps never seen greater focus and there continues to be great UK innovations in this space. The biggest problem for growing early-stage companies may be access to funding, but we expect UK investors and financial advisers to continue to utilise the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) to support such great companies whilst allowing investors to benefit from the generous potential tax reliefs on offer.  EIS has never been a more important Government tool for supporting the UK economy and it has never been more vital for investors to understand the potential benefits.

Andrew Aldridge, Partner at Deepbridge