What Is Common Interest Investments?

CII about platform CII Verification

What We Do

Common Interest Investments Ltd provides the compliance infrastructure for CICs to raise investment from their existing supporters — lawfully, affordably, and at scale.

We do this through CII Verification: a verification and compliance framework that confirms a CIC’s offer meets the requirements of the Financial Promotion Order’s Common Interest Exemption (Article 52) and the relevant exemptions under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

Why This Matters

Only 16% of CICs are structured as Limited by Shares — the form that can actually raise investment. The remaining 84% are Limited by Guarantee, dependent on grants, donations, and retained surplus.

If CIC Limited by Shares were supported to reach parity with their guarantee-based cousins, the sector could unlock an additional £13 billion in social enterprise economic activity, powered by investment rather than subsidy.

The barrier has never been demand. It has been compliance cost. Traditional legal advice for a compliant community share offer runs £5,000–£15,000. For a CIC trying to raise £30,000 from its community, that’s prohibitive.

CII reduces that cost to £2,200–£2,700 through automation, standardisation, and a rigorous but efficient verification process.

How It Works

For CICs:

  1. Apply for CII Verification — we verify your CIC status, asset lock, dividend cap compliance, and director fit
  2. Define your common interest group — your supporters, members, mailing list, or community
  3. We generate your compliant offer documentation (Art 52 statements, director responsibilities, investor information)
  4. You communicate with your closed group — mission-first, compliant, audit-ready

For investors:

  1. CII Verification signals that an offer has been independently verified
  2. You invest knowing the structure is sound and the CIC is genuine
  3. Your investment is framed as primarily supporting the mission, secondarily as a financial return

The Platform

CII is a for-profit company limited by shares. It is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. It does not give financial advice, recommend investments, or arrange deals. It provides compliance templates, verification services, and technology infrastructure — the same role a law firm plays, but automated and accessible.

The platform’s for-profit status is irrelevant to the exemptions because:

  • The investment offer is made by the CIC, not CII
  • The communication is issued by the CIC directors, who take personal statutory responsibility under Art 52(3)
  • CII provides the templates and verification, not the promotion
  • Our fee is flat-rate, not success-based — critical to avoid any characterisation as “arranging”

CII Verification

CII Verification is our core product. It signals to investors that a CIC’s offer has been independently checked for structural compliance. The verification includes:

  • Valid CIC status on the Companies House register
  • Asset lock wording in the articles
  • Dividend cap compliance
  • Director disqualification checks
  • Common interest group analysis (does this CIC have a genuine supporter base?)
  • Social mission validation (is the purpose real, not a sham?)

All automated checks are open-source and publicly auditable. The criteria are published and transparent. Governance is provided by an independent Compliance Committee and a Community Advisory Panel elected by participating CICs.

The Vision

CII exists to make the Common Interest Exemption work at scale. The exemption exists in law. The FCA has never challenged it. The legal profession has been too risk-averse to use it. CII changes that — by providing the infrastructure, the verification, and the assurance that makes compliant community investment accessible to every CIC with a mission and a community behind it.

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