Launching into autumn with good news

As we go into autumn we have two items of good news to share. The first is that HMRC has granted Encounter Nature Ltd an SEIS advance assurance certificate. SEIS stands for ‘Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme’; it was set up by the government to support new companies like ours, and help get them on their feet. Having SEIS status means that UK taxpayers who invest in our app can claim tax relief on 50% of their investment, up to £200,000; it also means that any returns they receive are exempt from capital gains tax.

This is a pretty big deal for us and we are thrilled to have received advance assurance. If you would like to support us by investing in the company and helping us fund the creation of the Encounter app – even in a small way! – there’s an enquiry form you can fill in here. You’ll be joining our anchor investor who has already contributed 60% of our £50,000 initial target.

If you know of anyone who you think might like to invest in Encounter, please do send them a link to this page– thank you so much.

The second piece of good news is that Miles Richardson, author of Reconnection: Fixing our Broken Relationship with Nature, has agreed to join us as an advisor to the project. In his other life, Miles is Professor of Human Factors and Nature Connectedness at the University of Derby, where he founded the Nature Connectedness Research Group. We couldn’t be more excited about this partnership as we feel Miles can bring research and insight to the development of the Encounter app that will ensure that it isn’t just a pleasure to use but actually changes lives, resulting in gains for people – and for nature.

It's been such an exciting couple of weeks, and we feel that from the giddy excitement of our initial idea we are now really gaining momentum. Our next task is to work out what we can deliver in the first version of the app, and what will follow in each update. We’ll be back in touch with news on that as things develop.

Until next time,

Mel