When venture capital and equity crowdfunding come together
Today, our friends at Seedcamp announced the second close of its highly anticipated fourth fund at £60 million. This announcement comes six months after the first close of Fund IV at £41 million in November 2017, but what’s different this time is that new investment comes from over 100 of Seedcamp’s founders, angels and mentors.
In a pioneering move for both the venture capital and equity crowdfunding space, we’re delighted to announce that we were chosen to raise a portion of Seedcamp’s Fund IV from the founders of Seedcamp-backed companies. This innovative collaboration was made possible by using Seedrs’ unique nominee structure.
This is the first time that a private equity marketplace platform such as Seedrs has entered into a Limited Partnership Agreement with a VC fund. The feeder fund, run through the Seedrs platform, enabled Seedcamp’s £60 million fund to be opened up to smaller ticket investors, giving them all of the benefits of a VC fund, which traditionally have been limited to institutions.
Jeff Kelisky, CEO at Seedrs, says: “This is a fantastic and genuinely innovative collaboration between the venture capital and equity crowdfunding spaces. We’re proud to have built an infrastructure that allows us to open up highly attractive funds, such as Seedcamp’s Fund IV, to more investors than ever possible before. We very much look forward to working with Seedcamp and their companies in the years to come.”
Investors able to come into Fund IV because of this collaboration include over 100 founders, mentors and angels such as Taveet Hinrikus from TransferWise, Daniel Dines of UiPath, Michael Pennington of Gumtree, Ed Wray from Betfair and Barry Smith of Skyscanner. Other institutions backing Seedcamp Fund IV as part of the final close include Orange Digital Investments, Cachette Capital Management and MUFG Bank.
At £60 million, Seedcamp’s Fund IV is over 30 times bigger than its first fund of $2.5 million dating back to 2007. With Fund IV, Seedcamp plans to invest in up to 100 startups from across Europe at pre-seed and seed stages, maintaining its sector-agnostic approach. Seedcamp has already made 15 new investments from Fund IV backing Factmata, Sweatcoin, Pace, Homie, Vantik, doctorly, StepLadder, Maze and Veratrak.
Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Seedcamp Managing Partner, adds: “When we talk about Seedcamp as a lifelong community of support we really mean it; it’s amazing to have founders who we backed when we were first starting out join us as part of our new fund as we invest in the next generation of world-class entrepreneurial talent. Their investment would not have been possible if it weren’t for our partnership with Seedrs which has enabled us to bring on board so many of our founders.”
