Seedrs Caps Off £10m Fundraise

Seedrs has finished off its Series A fundraise in style.

Seedrs began its first major fundraise by securing a £7.5m investment from Neil Woodford’s WPCT and Augmentum Capital. The platform has now closed out the round by allowing the crowd to pile in on an extra £2.5m of ordinary shares. The fundraise was met with frenzied demand. According to the company’s weekly update, the round received on average one investment every 25 seconds, with an average of £7,227 per minute flowing into the raise. That equals out to over £430k per hour.

Seedrs’ existing shareholders were first given their right to pre-emption. AltFi understands that the platform then chose to offer its most historically active individual investors the chance to participate in the round ahead of its opening to the general public.

The Series A top-up, which sought to raise £2.5m (£2,500,008, to be exact) ended up overfunding by approximately £1.5m. However, the company issued an investor update on Friday, stating that it would not be able to accept more than the £2.5m – for which 8.33% of the company had been offered. The fundraising campaign has remained open to cover for any non-payment. If an investor that managed to commit to the round before the £2.5m target was reached fails to pay within the allotted window, investments made during the overfunding phase will be accepted instead, in the order that they were received.

The £2.5m round will take Seedrs’ post-money valuation to £30m.

It fits with the mantra of the alternative finance industry that so many of the top platforms are opting to raise a portion of their equity money from the “crowd”. Indeed, the enthusiastic private investor has had ample opportunity to construct quite the portfolio of peer-to-peer and crowdfunding platforms over the past few years – including such names as Assetz Capital, Landbay, CrowdLords and Trillion Fund.

But Seedrs may well be the crown jewel in the collection. With a model often lauded for its sustainability, and the backing of star fund manager Neil Woodford secured, the future looks bright for the Seedrs platform, and for equity crowdfunding in the UK.