Lord Rothschild and fund manager Neil Woodford have become the latest people to invest in Seedrs, leading a £10m investment round to fund the platform’s further expansion.
Seedrs is Europe’s leading crowdfunding platform, allowing anyone to invest in businesses with as little as £10. It recently partnered with British Tennis legend Andy Murray to raise brand awareness and the firm has been growing at a rate of 15% month-on-month, leading the sector with 110 successfully funded campaigns. It was recently named by KPMG as one of the world’s 50 best fintech innovators.
Augmentum Capital, founded Tim Levene and Richard Matthews, and Neil Woodford’s Patient Capital Trust are investing £7.5m into Seedrs, and a further £2.5m will be offered to existing shareholders and other individual investors through a campaign on the platform to achieve the total of £10m.
Jeff Lynn, Seedrs co-founder and CEO, said he was “absolutely thrilled” to have Woodford and Rothchild involved.
“The greatest fund manager of our time and the greatest financial family in history have looked at the equity crowdfunding space, decided that there is a huge opportunity to be won, and decided that Seedrs is the one that’s going to win it,” Lynn said.
Augmentum Capital managing partner Tim Levene added: ‘We have been following the developments in equity crowdfunding for some time and believe Seedrs are the stand out company. ‘The market is still early in its development with many challenges to overcome. However, we believe Seedrs have the right blend of talent, vision, experience and rigour to ensure they become the leader in this exciting space.”
Seedrs acquired California-based Junction Investments in October last year in an attempt to break into the US market, and it is believed that some of the £10m will be used for further expansion in the States, as well as marketing here and in Europe.
