2017 has been, by far, our most successful year to date. Independent research firm Beauhurst has recognised that Seedrs is the most active investor in UK private companies for the second year running. In fact, we’ve had plenty of achievements to be happy about throughout the last 12 months.
A host of industry awards
We took home four major awards, cementing public recognition of our position as an industry leader:
- Alternative Finance Platform of the Year – awarded by the British Small Business Awards
- Best Crowdfunding Platform – awarded by Shares Magazine
- Industry Game Changer – presented by The Growth Investor Awards
- Fast 50 – named by Deloitte as one of the 50 fastest-growing tech businesses in the UK
Our Seedrs £10 million funding round
Our very own funding round was led by star fund manager Neil Woodford who increased his existing stake in our innovative investment platform with an additional £4 million investment. In addition to this, roughly 2,000 of our own customers invested a further £6 million.
Record-breaking deals
We broke multiple records this year with funding rounds now surpassing £300M invested into campaigns on the platform since launch, and over 560 deals funded to date, including recent campaigns for:
- Digital banking alternative Revolut raising £3.8 million from over 4,300 investors via Seedrs as part of a £50 million Series B round led by Index Ventures.
- Dutch-based trading app Bux allocating €1.4 million to the crowd as part of its €10 million Series C, led by Germany’s Holtzbrinck Ventures. Bux reached their target in just 24 hours from over 2,000 investors.
The first fully functional secondary market
Recognising the growing demand for liquidity from investors, we announced a pioneering move for our sector with the launch of The Seedrs Secondary Market. This beta product enables shareholders in Seedrs-funded businesses to buy and sell shares from each other during a one-week window each month.
Our Secondary Market continues to grow at pace, with around five times as many shares listed in the December trading window as had been listed in the market’s first window back in June, and we look forward to further developing the product.
What a year: Jeff Kelisky’s first year at Seedrs
Jeff Kelisky, CEO at Seedrs, reflected on his first year in the business, “Since joining Seedrs in January, I have been hugely impressed and delighted by what we have built and the opportunity we have ahead of us. The continued success of so many of our portfolio companies validates everything we are working so hard to achieve, but also the very essence of what equity crowdfunding stands for – helping ambitious growth-focused businesses thrive with patient capital, and starting to deliver sizeable returns to investors.
Seedrs has been live for five years, and in a long-term asset class where we have always talked about returns from the seven-year mark onwards, the trajectory is already incredibly positive. 2017 has been a standout year for both Seedrs and the wider space, but we have long been looking ahead to 2018 and planning how we can continue to lead the equity crowdfunding space with innovative technology, game-changing products and many more portfolio success stories.”
We look forward to, and are already making strides toward, an even more standout 2018 and can’t wait to share more with you when we can.
Investing involves risks, including loss of capital, illiquidity, lack of dividends and dilution, and should be done only as part of a diversified portfolio. Investments should only be made by investors who understand these risks. Note that not all shares will be eligible for the secondary market and, even if they are, the ability to buy and sell shares will depend on demand. It can be difficult to find a buyer or seller, and investors should not assume that an early exit will be available just because a secondary market exists. This blog post has been approved as a financial promotion by Seedrs Limited.
