2017: A Game Changing year for Equity Crowdfunding

Seedrs announces that 2017 has been by far its most successful year to date.  The investment platform has seen a number of achievements during the year, including a host of industry award wins, an oversubscribed funding round led by Woodford Investment Management, record-breaking deals and the launch of the industry’s first fully functional secondary market. Secondary Market

In the first half of the year, Seedrs announced a pioneering move for the sector with the launch of a secondary market after recognising the growing demand for liquidity from investors. The innovative product allows shareholders in Seedrs portfolio businesses to trade shares during a one-week window each month.

Since the June launch, share lots in 126 different businesses have been traded, with investors achieving 682 exits through the process. Many investors have achieved impressive returns from these exits, including:

• Early investors into Welsh e-commerce provider Veeqo have realised up to 19x returns on a tax-adjusted basis (9.5x returns non-tax-adjusted).

• Shareholders who invested in proptech firm Landbay’s first funding round earned 18x returns on a tax-adjusted basis (9x returns non-tax-adjusted).

• The world’s first automated bundling solution, Swogo, has produced 14.5x returns on a tax-adjusted basis (7.5x returns non-tax-adjusted).

The Seedrs secondary market continues to grow quickly, with five times the number of shares listed in the December trading window as had been listed in the market’s first window in June.

Portfolio Exits and On-going Successes

In addition to the many investor exits achieved through the secondary market, Seedrs saw two company-level exits in 2017.

Blow LTD, the on-demand beauty services startup, facilitated an opportunity for Seedrs investors to sell their shares to retail giant Debenhams. Only a small handful of investors chose to sell, given the company’s strong prospects ahead, but those who did achieved up to a 3x return.

Wealthify, the robo-advisory platform, agreed the sale of a majority interest to insurance leader Aviva. Seedrs investors, some of whom only purchased their shares a few months ago, will sell their stakes as part of the transaction for a nearly 20% gain.

Beyond exits, Seedrs is particularly excited by how well its portfolio companies are performing*. A few of the many successful examples include:

• Airsorted, a property management platform for AirBnB hosts, has delivered investors an annualised rate of return (IRR) of 189.56% on a tax-adjusted basis (120.85% non-tax-adjusted).

• Den, a maker of smart-home systems that recently hired ex-Amstrad boss Bob Watkins as CEO, has delivered investors an IRR of 141.37% on a tax-adjusted basis (66.53% non-tax-adjusted).

• Your Welcome, which makes touchscreen tablets for holiday and short-term rentals, has delivered investors an IRR of 172.78% on a tax-adjusted basis (131.08% non-tax-adjusted).

Though exits and paper returns are both great demonstrations of Seedrs’ portfolio performance, success can run deeper than that.  Seedrs funded businesses are demonstrating impressive growth and revenues such as:

• Perkbox, the UK’s leading employee perks and benefits provider, recorded turnover growth from £4.3 million in 2015 to £14.7 million in 2016 and more recently 2017 half year revenues of £13.6 million, hitting 92% of its entire 2016. Perkbox has also recently announced a 3-year committed funding facility of £4 million with Barclays to help the business scale, as well as acquiring digital rewards platform Loyalty Bay.

• Healthy ice cream company Oppo, which has raised on Seedrs three times since 2015, announced major launches into 350 Asda stores, 250 Sainsbury’s stores and 750 Albert Heijn stores in the Netherlands last month alone. The startup’s revenues are now over £1.8 million, almost triple the previous year.

• Tossed, the healthier eating place, now has 24 stores, including franchises in Dubai, and sales are now more than £13 million. Tossed is credited with launching the first cashless stores in Europe  and is on route to dominating the fast-growing healthy eating market.
  
  

Industry Awards

Awards season saw Seedrs take home four major awards, cementing public recognition of its place as industry leader:

• British Small Business Awards named Seedrs as Alternative Finance Platform of the Year.

• Shares Magazine named Seedrs as Best Crowdfunding Platform.

• The Growth Investor Awards named Seedrs as Industry Game Changer.

• Deloitte named Seedrs in its Fast 50, which lists the 50 fastest-growing technology businesses in the UK.

Meanwhile, for the second year running, independent research firm Beauhurst has recognised Seedrs as the most active investor in UK private companies.

Record-Breaking Rounds

Seedrs broke multiple records this year with its funding rounds, and it has now surpassed £300 million invested into campaigns on the platform since launch, with over 560 deals funded to date. Some highlights of the past year include:

• Digital banking alternative Revolut raised £3.8 million, from over 4,300 investors, on Seedrs as part of a £50 million Series B round led by Index Ventures.

• Seedrs continued to make waves in Europe with Dutch-based trading app Bux allocating €1.4 million to the crowd as part of its €10 million Series C led by Germany’s Holtzbrinck Ventures, one of Europe’s most successful venture capital firms. Bux raised the funds in just 24 hours from over 2,000 investors.

• Seedrs itself closed a £10 million funding round, led by star fund manager Neil Woodford who increased his existing stake in the innovative investment platform with an additional £4 million investment. In addition to this, roughly 2,000 of Seedrs’ own customers invested a further £6 million.

Jeff Kelisky, CEO at Seedrs, reflects on his first year at the company: “Since joining Seedrs in January, I have been hugely impressed and delighted by what we have built and the opportunity we have ahead of us. The continued success of so many of our portfolio companies validates everything we are working so hard to achieve, but also the very essence of what equity crowdfunding stands for – helping ambitious growth focused businesses thrive with patient capital, and starting to deliver sizeable returns to investors.

“Seedrs has been live for five years, and in a long term asset class where we have always talked about returns from the seven year mark onwards, the trajectory is already incredibly positive. 2017 has been a standout year for both Seedrs and the wider space, but we have long been looking ahead to 2018 and planning how we can continue to lead the equity crowdfunding space with innovative technology, game-changing products and many more portfolio success stories.”