If you have a startup that is taking a proven idea and exploiting a niche ("twitter for left handers", "ebay for counterfeit goods", "airbnb for dyslexic vegetarians") or you're taking an existing business model and disrupting it via the internet (car rental, clothes swaps, food delivery) then you may well find seed money in the UK.

But if it's a new idea (new product/service) then in my experience even with a team with a proven track record, and a product built up and running to proof-of-engineering-principle, there aren't many people who can look at an idea and a first version and see beyond the fact that it's new, different and raw to see the opportunity to invest.

It would seem the early stage money is not tech-savvy, not excited by tech, and is looking for iteration over innovation. That is, it's risk averse and favours the reliability of a decent chance of incremental gains rather than lower chance of much bigger gains.

I haven't met everyone, by a long stretch, and it may well be that my product/pitch is wrong, but genuine innovation doesn't seem to come through the UK seed/VC channels, while such products start in the UK they generally find seed money from the US.

It depends on what you define by seed money, if you've just got an idea and no track record you'll find it hard to raise any seed money.

The following things will make it easier for you to raise money:

  * a track record (i.e. a strong team)
  * a product 
  * customers desperate for your product
  * traction
  * a large market size

If you have all five get funding will be easy, the fewer you have the harder a time you will have getting funding. If you have none of them you'll struggle to get funding from professional investors (on the other hand angels who care about your product and government funds may still be an option)