By Emily Nicolle on Wednesday 28 February 2018
The initial limit set for investors on the crowdfunding platform was surpassed in 24hrs.
Equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs has announced it will be offering investors the opportunity to invest in Augmentum Fintech plc’s £100m initial public offering (IPO). Augmentum’s is the first Main Market IPO that Seedrs investors have had access to, with investors surpassing the initial £500k target that Seedrs set for its portion of the IPO within 24 hours.
AltFi reported last week on fintech VC firm Augmentum Capital’s intention to float that the newly established closed-end fund, which will be specifically targeting UK and European early-stage fintech firms with high growth potential.
The Rothschild-backed investment trust RIT Capital Partners is set to invest £10m, with a further £2.7m to be invested by the management team. Concurrent with the IPO, Augmentum Capital will also acquire an initial portfolio of five fintech investments, including stakes in Seedrs, Zopa, Interactive Investor, Bullion Vault and SRL Global, which comes out with an aggregate valuation of £33.3m.
Tim Levene, co-founder and principal of Augmentum Capital and a board member of Seedrs, commented: “The UK and Europe are well-placed to capitalise on the ongoing disruption of the financial services sector, where we are surrounded by some of the most innovative fintech businesses like Seedrs.
“The Augmentum Fintech team is well networked with investment and operational expertise as well as a successful and established track record, offering investors targeted exposure to a sector with huge growth potential that is difficult to access. We expect to drive value creation from our investment and deliver attractive long-term value to investors.
As an investor and passionate supporter of Seedrs, we are pleased that we are able to offer their investors access to the new fund. We believe it offers attractive risk-adjusted returns through a highly curated portfolio of high calibre fintech companies.”
Seedrs also recently opened up its popular secondary market to all investors, after which it saw a 298 per cent increase in trading activity. In the February trading window, a total of 442 share lots were traded in 128 different businesses, including fintech giant Revolut.
Jeff Kelisky, Chief Executive Officer at Seedrs, today added: “We are delighted to be supporting Tim and the Augmentum team in this exciting venture. Although Seedrs has the capacity and is regulated to facilitate public market investments, we have generally chosen to focus on our core offering to seed through to pre-IPO private businesses.
“However, because of Seedrs’ connection as an Augmentum portfolio company, the appeal of fintech investment opportunities for our investors and Seedrs’ legacy in creating innovative products, we decided to participate in this offering and are delighted to see the demand from our investors already. Seedrs continues to lead industry advancements in the equity crowdfunding space and is excited to make this opportunity available for those who may not have had it elsewhere.”
