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==Companies funded==
==Companies funded==
81 startups on Seedrs have reached their full investment target, receiving investment of more than £7.2 million across them. Notable campaigns have included:
82 startups on Seedrs have reached their full investment target, receiving investment of more than £7.2 million across them. Notable campaigns have included:


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Revision as of 20:13, 26 March 2014

Seedrs
Investing in startups made simple and rewarding
Type of site
Investing online
Available inEnglish
Headquarters
London
,
United Kingdom
URLwww.seedrs.com
CommercialYes

Seedrs is an equity crowdfunding platform for investing in early-stage startups throughout Europe.[1] Seedrs allows anyone to invest as little as £10 into the startups they choose online and lets early-stage startups raise investment from friends, family and other independent investors in exchange for equity in the business. Seedrs is an "all or nothing" platform where companies do not receive any funding unless they reach their declared investment target, but businesses have the chance to accept more than originally asked for in a process called "overfunding".[2]

Seedrs allows a wider base of potential investors, among the mass affluent, access to startup investing - an asset class that was previously only available to high-net-worth or sophisticated angel investors.

Seedrs was the first equity crowdfunding platform to receive regulatory approval from a financial regulator – the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA, formerly the FSA) in May 2012.[3] The company is based in East London’s Tech City,[4] with its design & development team operating from Lisbon, Portugal.

History

Seedrs was founded by Jeff Lynn (CEO) and Carlos Silva (COO) as part of an MBA project at Oxford’s Said Business School and officially launched in the UK on 6 July 2012.[5] Seedrs raised £1.3 million in funding in May 2012 from backers, including: DFJ Esprit, Digital Prophets and several angel investors. In December 2013, Seedrs raised the largest equity crowdfunding round ever, raising just over £2.5 million.[6]

In March 2013, Seedrs announced its Board of Advisors, including: James Alexander (Zopa and The Foundation), Mike Butcher (TechCrunch and London Web Summit), Ralph, Lord Lucas (House of Lords), and Dale Murray (Angel Investor of the Year and successful entrepreneur).

Seedrs was named one of "East London's 20 Hottest Startups" by The Guardian; in July 2012,[4] was Wireds' "Startup of the Week" in August 2012,[7] and was named by Silicon Valley Comes to the UK as one of the top 100 UK Businesses in November 2013.[8]

Noteworthy events

  • In November 2012, Microco.sm raised £50,000 in just 15 hours, making it the fastest equity campaign raised to date.[9]
  • In December 2012, Seedrs was welcomed as the first equity crowdfunding platform to be accepted as member of the UK Business Angels Association.[10]
  • In July 2013, city "superwoman" Nicola Horlick raised £150,000 for a fund management venture, Glentham Capital, in just 22 hours.[11]
  • In October 2013, Seedrs launched the first equity crowdfunding 'fund', allowing investors to spread a single investment across 10 startups selected to join the WebStart Bristol accelerator programme.[12]
  • In November 2013, Seedrs successfully raised a £750,000 investment for the company in one morning, using its own platform.[13] The round went on to raise £2.58 million.
  • In December 2013, Happy Days - A New Musical became the first major theatre production to raise equity crowdfunding, raising £250,000 through Seedrs.[14]

Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS)

On 6 April 2012, the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) was launched by the UK Government, with the goal to "stimulate entrepreneurship and kick start the economy."[15] The scheme offers up to 50% individual income tax relief, up to 28% capital gains tax relief and capital gains tax re-investment relief to investors who invest in eligible startup companies. Seedrs has a high concentration of SEIS eligible startups listed for investment and makes it very simple for UK tax payers to take advantage of the reliefs online.[16]

Companies funded

82 startups on Seedrs have reached their full investment target, receiving investment of more than £7.2 million across them. Notable campaigns have included:

Startup Name Total GBP Equity Sector Location About
PixelPin £150,000 10% Digital Tech ENGLAND PixelPin is the first Seedrs startup to raise £150,000. PixelPin eliminates the traditional alphanumeric password by using a picture based approach, whereby users choose an image that’s personal to them. Then they choose 4 pass-points in sequence. The PixelPin process eliminates the risk of phishing, dictionary attacks and brute force hacking.
Mikes Fancy Cheese £80,000 40% Food & Drink NORTHERN IRELAND Mikes Fancy Cheese is looking to create Northern Ireland's first artisanal blue cheese brand.[17]
Veeqo £120,000 28.57% B2B WALES Veeqo is a cloud-based app for retail (online and offline) small businesses which would allow them to manage their orders and inventory across all their sales channels.[18]
Silver Curve £200,000 20% B2B ENGLAND Silver Curve creates digital signage using a mobile phone chip rather than a PC, with a dramatic reduction in unit and energy costs for advertisers.[19]

Shareholding structure

Unlike other platforms, Seedrs gives all investors voting shares in companies. This guarantees that very investor receives on-going engagement and communication from entrepreneurs while protecting investor rights as nominee under a subscription agreement. The structure assures that investors have a say while their rights are protected and that entrepreneurs do not have the administrative burden of looking after numerous individual investors.

Investors

Seedrs investors do not need to worry about managing their investments directly. Unlike other crowdfunding platforms, all investors receive voting shares and investments are protected using both the statutory provisions afforded to ordinary shareholders as well as contractual protections that are in place under their subscription agreements with the funded companies. The subscription agreement has such protections as: consent rights, pre-emption rights and tag-along rights.

Entrepreneurs

The nominee structure protects companies from the risks that come with having a large number of investors. By pooling investors under the nominee structure, companies deal with one shareholder rather than a large number of individual shareholders that can arise from equity crowdfunding. Seedrs votes and issue consents on behalf of each Seedrs investor. In the absence of such an approach, the difficulty in obtaining consents and other signatures from each individual investor could make it nearly impossible to raise further finance.

The case of German startup Smarchive is a good example of how a nominee structure and subscription agreement can be beneficial for startups. They had difficulty raising VC funding in 2012 after having previously raised finance from equity crowdfunding platform Seedmatch from 140 investors.[20]

Fees

Seedrs takes a one-off fee of 7.5% from successfully funded startups which covers all legal and administrative costs from raising funds. Seedrs retain transparency with these costs and do not charge startups at any other time for any additional services.

Seedrs also takes a success fee from investors of 7.5% of the profits investors make as a result of their investment, covering day-to-day management of shares and on-going investor protections.

Special programs

In September 2012, Seedrs and PeerIndex launched a special program where the top 100 "influential people" as measured by PeerIndex would each receive £100 to invest in any Seedrs listed company they wanted to. It was hoped that the program would give influential people a no-risk way to try out equity crowdfunding and share their experience with friends and colleagues.[21]

From October–November 2012, Seedrs partnered with experienced angel investors Doug Richard and Dale Murray for the Windows of Opportunity roadshow to nine English cities to promote the Seed EIS scheme to both entrepreneurs and investors who wanted to learn more about the scheme.[22]

See also

References

  1. ^ O'Hear, Steve (25 November 2013). "Eating Its Own Caviar, UK Equity Crowdfunding Platform Seedrs To Crowd-Raise £500K As It Expands To Europe". TechCrunch. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
  2. ^ Julie Hayes, "York company FoodeeBox.com aims to raise £60k in three months with crowd funding", The Press, 25 September 2012
  3. ^ Business, Editor (18 August 2012). "FSA warning over crowdfunding sites". The Independent. Retrieved 20 August 2012. {{cite news}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  4. ^ a b Silver, James (8 July 2012). "East London's 20 hottest tech startups". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
  5. ^ Clayton, Nick (6 July 2012). "Crowdfunder Seedrs Goes Live". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 11 August 2012.
  6. ^ PEREIRA, JOÃO PEDRO (17 December 2013). "Seedrs manages 2.5 million in its own investment platform". Publico. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  7. ^ "Startup of the Week - Seedrs". Wired UK. Conde Nast. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
  8. ^ Goldburn, James. "SVC2UK unveil this year's 100 Club members". TechCityNews. Retrieved 8 December 2013.
  9. ^ Sandlund, Jonathan (26 November 2012). "Social Networking Startup, Microcosm, Crowdfunds $80,000 on Seedrs. In 15 Hours". The Crowd Cafe. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  10. ^ "Seedrs Becomes First Online Investment Platform to Join UKBAA". UKBAA News. UKBAA. Retrieved 12 December 2012.
  11. ^ Andrew, Amy (31 July 2013). "Fund manager Nicola Horlick uses crowdfunding website to raise £150,000 in a day for Hollywood film venture". This is Money. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
  12. ^ O'hear, Steve (7 October 2013). "Seedrs Lets Armchair Investors Take A Punt On WebStart Bristol's First Incubator Cohort". TechCrunch. Retrieved 7 October 2013.
  13. ^ "Crowdfunding start-up Seedrs raises £750,000 through its own website". The Telegraph. 25 November 2013.
  14. ^ Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (3 December 2013). "Happy Days musical crowdfunds £250,000 for national tour". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 December 2013.
  15. ^ "Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme". SEIS Information. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
  16. ^ "SEIS". Seedrs Site. Retrieved 2 November 2012.
  17. ^ Smyth, Jamie (12 May 2013). "Entrepreneurism in Northern Ireland takes on a local flavour". Financial Times. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  18. ^ "Swansea-based e-commerce firm marks second round of investment on crowdfunding platform". Startups.co.uk. Startups.co.uk. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  19. ^ "Start-up Silver Curve crowdfunding record with digital signs idea powered by low-cost Raspberry Pi computers". Retrieved 9 November 2013.
  20. ^ Unknown. "How crowdfunding nearly bankrupted my company". Whiteboard Mag. Whiteboard. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
  21. ^ Ben Rooney, "Seedrs, PeerIndex Target Social-Media Influencers", Wall Street Journal TechEurope, 11 September 2012
  22. ^ "Windows of Opportunity Roadshow". School for Startups. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
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