Seedrs says amount invested on its platform jumped 49 per cent in 2019
Crowd-funding platform Seedrs said today that the amount invested in pitches on its platform grew 49 per cent to £238m in 2019.
It said it completed 250 deals during the year, up from 186 in 2018, and delivered 7,858 investor exits on its secondary market.
Highlights included Scottish fintech Paysend raising £10.7m and football club AFC Wimbledon raising £2.4m from over 5,000 investors.
Speaking to City PM chief executive Jeff Kelisky said the business had two key goals in 2019.
Read more: Losses widen at Seedrs as deal sizes continue to grow
“One was about scale which we have proven and the other is key product features which are now live and we are going to add to as we step into 2020.”
New features include auction pricing within its secondary marketplace and allowing businesses that have not used Seedrs for capital raising to access its secondary market.
In the year to 31 December 2018, Seedrs made a loss of nearly £4m against revenue of nearly £3.2m.
Read more: Seedrs is expanding further into Europe with a new Berlin office
Kelisky said the company is about to kick off a series B funding round with the aim of raising approximately £20m.
He said the money would be used to expand in the EU, which is closed to liberalising its crowdfunding regime, and to invest in further products.
Kelisky said Seedrs could open offices in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries depending on the final EU legislation.
“We would be looking to put feet on the ground and engage with the local business and investor communities in each of the key markets,” he said.
Kelisky said Brexit had not slowed the number of firms looking for funding.
“Brexit hasn’t slowed down the growth of our industry or us in particular, and in some ways it has created more entrepreneurship.
“What we have found is the greater the uncertainty the more you give birth to entrepreneurs because the entrepreneurs find opportunities in the uncertainty,” he said.