Crowdfunding platform Seedrs has been named as Britain’s most active investor in private companies, ranked number one with 78 funded deals at the halfway point in 2016 according to a leading source of objective deep data on UK startups and scale ups.
The company writes that it is experiencing exponential year on year growth with 55 deals funded during the same period in 2015, and 43 deals funded in the first half of 2014.
Seedrs has a 50 per cent share of the UK equity crowdfunding market in 2016 with its closest competitor Crowdcube at 40 per cent while all other platforms have 10 per cent combined.
Standout funding rounds on Seedrs so far this year included challenger bank Tandem, which raised GBP2.2 million in a matter of days from 1712 investors, West Berkshire Brewery which raised GBP1.7 million from 647 investors, the UK’s fastest growing P2P lender Landbay which recently announced a partnership with Zoopla and reached GBP1.6 million with 407 investors; beauty-on-demand app blow LTD which raised GBP1.3 million, FinTech50 2015 member, annual travel ticket subscription service CommuterClub, which overfunded to GBP1.2 million.
Seedrs has now funded more than 380 deals since launch in July 2012, and based on global ranking Alexa, has significantly more people using its platform than any other equity crowdfunding platform in Europe.
Jeff Lynn, (pictured) CEO & Co-Founder at Seedrs says: “We are delighted to continue our lead as the most active equity investment platform in the UK and to have funded 78 deals in the first six months of 2016. The gap between Seedrs and the closest competitor is also increasing as Seedrs continues to take 50 per cent market share of all UK equity crowdfunding activity. It is a great start to what looks set to be a record-breaking year.
“We haven’t seen a notable slowdown since the referendum in spite of fear mongering around the country. The UK is still attractive and safe for inward investment and will continue to be one of the number one destinations for entrepreneurs to set up a business with its favourable tax reliefs, streamlined business incorporation and simple transport abroad.”
