Crowdcube named ‘Most Active Seed Stage Investor’ in report into equity investment
The ‘2013 Annual Equity Investment Review’, an independent recent report written by Beauhurst, the leading source of data on growing companies, shows Crowdcube as the most active seed-stage funder of 2013.
“The progress of this funder has been particularly impressive. Crowdcube was launched in the UK in February 2011 and since then the number of deals completed at this stage increased by just over sevenfold with all of that growth occurring between 2012 and 2013.”
Equity Investment is Booming
The report shows that 2013 was boom year for investment with over £1.5bn invested into 650 of our fastest growing companies, which is 35% up from 2012. Early data from 2014 suggests that investment in the first eight weeks of the year is up 65% from the same period in 2013. Much of this growth is down to the rise in seed-stage investing. This is the typical preserve of the ‘angel’ investor – but the rise in crowdfunding platforms and the tax relief offered by the government has made it easier to access the seed stage market.
Crowdcube was also the second most active venture stage funder of 2013 only beaten marginally by The Scottish Co-Investment Fund, a government fund that is partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
The number of businesses funded in this space rose more than sixfold in 2013 and the report cited that “most of this can be attributed to the inroads made by Crowdcube at this stage of growth.”
“Crowdcube rules UK Crowdfunding”
The report says that Crowdcube has: “dominated the UK equity crowdfunding marketing since launch and was responsible for 70% of crowdfunded deals in 2013.”
Stephen Bence, Chairman and Co-Founder of Beauhurst, said; “This area of backing fast growing companies has typically been the preserve of a small elite of extremely wealthy “business angels”. But with the rapid rise of crowdfunding platforms here has been a democratisation of investment, with the public looking to get a stake in a small company on the ground floor with a view to backing a winner. Over 1.5billion was invested into 650 of the UK’s fastest growing companies in 2013. That’s small beer for a giant corporation but for our growing companies it’s the difference between getting the next Mark Zuckerberg out of his student rooms and onto the road to the FTSE100.”
