Record-breaking 2019 for investment platform Seedrs
by Startacus Admin
How 2019 has proven to be a hugely successful year for Seedrs...
A great start to the New Year for leading private company investment platform Seedrs with the announcement that in 2019 they had a record-breaking year. £283M was invested into pitches - a 49% growth in investment from the previous year. Seedrs completed 250 deals in 2019, up from 186 in 2018, and delivered 7,858 investor exits on its Secondary Market. During 2019, Seedrs helped businesses from 16 different countries raise funds, and received investment from 78 different countries. 51 of the 250 completed deals were fundraises of over £1 million, showing 89% growth in larger funding rounds from 2018. Highlights include Scottish fintech Paysend raising £10.7M to form their Series B, Seedrs’ first Danish company LuggageHero completing a €1.5M round, and AFC Wimbledon raising £2.4M from over 5,000 investors in one of the UK’s largest public funding rounds for a football club.
The investment platform also launched two industry-firsts in 2019. The first of these was the EIS100 Fund which offers investors passive exposure to the venture capital asset class at scale. It began deploying capital into EIS-eligible pitches in April 2019 for 12 months. Also, in November, Seedrs announced the first ever in-app investment opportunity for an early-stage company, through a new partnership with London-based firm Oval Money.
The Seedrs Secondary Market has also seen huge growth over the past twelve months, having further extended its lead in the industry with many new features added. 7,858 investor exits across 317 different businesses were delivered in 2019, taking the all-time total of exits since launch to 13,671. Investors continue to generate highly profitable returns, often further magnified by the generous UK EIS and SEIS tax reliefs, on the Secondary Market.
The Seedrs Anchor Investor Service, which supports select businesses in finding institutional capital, had another positive year securing £9.5M in investment offers for companies raising on Seedrs and its portfolio businesses.
Jeff Kelisky, CEO at Seedrs says: “It’s been an outstanding 12 months for the business. I’m excited to share our 2019 in numbers, announcing record levels of investment which demonstrate tremendous growth while continuing to deliver true pioneering achievements over the course of last year.
Our vision has always been to create a marketplace for all investors in private companies, and 2019 has been a real step-change for us as we move towards that. With more industry firsts like API driven in-app investing and the EIS100 Fund, along with further iterations to our existing innovations like AutoInvest and Secondary Market, we’re getting very close to becoming the de facto standard in the industry on our path to achieving our vision. Our plans for 2020 are big, and include a number of innovations like auction pricing on the Secondary Market. Watch this space, because investing in private companies just got a lot more exciting.”
After such an impressive 2019, we’re certainly looking forward to seeing what the coming year brings for this innovative investment platform.
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Published on: 6th January 2020
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