Seedrs, equity crowd-funding platform based in United Kingdom, has raised crowd-funding for itself, and its big this time. Company has created history by raising highest equity funding via a crowd funding website.
Seedrs has an unusual start. It was created as part of MBA project at Oxford's Said Business School by Jeff Lynn and Carlos Silva. It was officially launched in UK on July 6, 2012. Company was named "one of East London's hottest start-up" by The Guardian in July 2012. Seedrs has more than 27,000 registered members and has funded £4.5 million across 51 deals with-in 17 months of launch. Going with this, company's growth rate is 600% annually. Company charges 7.5% of every successful raise from its platform and same amount in future profits made by investors like exit or dividend distribution.
Pre-money valuation for Seedrs was £5.174 million. Seedrs initially planned for 750,000 of investment in return of 12.66% equity. On the day of funding start, this barrier was reached by 10:30 AM, 1 million by afternoon. With in the prescribed time it raised £2.154 million. This was against 29.4% equity partnership in the growing hotbed of crowd-funding. This is a record investment raise on any crown-funding website. Till now this record was held by Hab Housing, which raised £1.9 million via a competitor website crowdcube. In Seedrs, investors were able to invest as little as 10.
As per CEO Jeff Lynn, they are overwhelmed by the response they got from investors and this validates viability of crowd-funding and their platform. At the same time seedrs has announced its European expansion. As per Jeff, in a online scenario and globalized world it is silly that a German should invest in German start-up and a Brit in a British start-up. Apart from this he did not rejects the future VC funding by seedrs. A sper some experts, crowd-funding industry could reach £185 million in a few years.
No comments:
Post a Comment