Fund manager Nicola Horlick has broken records with her campaign on equity crowdfunding site Seedrs to raise seed capital for her new venture, Glentham Capital.
The GBP150,000 target investment, offering 10 per cent ownership of the new business, was achieved in just 22 hours from launch, with 136 investors participating through the Seedrs website.
This is the fastest ever rate of funding for a startup business listed on Seedrs.
Jeff Lynn, chief executive and co-founder of Seedrs, says: “It has been very exciting to see just how swiftly Nicola Horlick’s new venture Glentham Capital has achieved its GBP150,000 target funding – especially as the 22 hours it took has set a new record for Seedrs. It is clear that offering ordinary investors the chance to participate in what we all hope will be Nicola’s next big win was a hugely attractive proposition. It also reflects how Seedrs’s mission to open up early-stage investing to the wide array of men and women who want exposure to asset classes that were previously reserved for the very rich is catching on in a very big way.”
Glentham Capital is a startup fund management company. It will look to raise a USD100m listed Guernsey fund from UK and overseas investors starting in the final quarter of 2013. Once raised, the fund will provide finance for Hollywood films. Horlick (pictured) serves as chairman of the company and Pandora Edmiston, who worked in the film industry and then moved to Citibank for a number of years, is its CEO.
The money raised through Seedrs will be used to pay Edmiston’s first-year salary, the set-up costs of the fund and some travel costs. Thereafter the company plans to operate profitably through a two per cent management fee and a 20 per cent performance fee charged on the new fund. There are plans to launch other specialist funds in the future.
By launching this campaign, Horlick invited investors large and small to own a piece of the new company. All UK-resident adults were eligible to invest (provided they pass a quiz showing that they understand the risks of early-stage investing), and the minimum investment amount was GBP10.
Investments will be made directly through the Seedrs online platform, and after completion Seedrs will hold and administer the shares as the investors’ nominee. Investors will be able to claim Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) tax relief of up to 78 per cent on their investments.
