Seedrs Launches Amsterdam Office
- Seedrs expands to Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg (Benelux) with launch of its Amsterdam office
- Successful Dutch entrepreneur David Mozes joins Seedrs to lead the Benelux operation
- Announcement follows Seedrs’s receipt of an EU-wide Financial Services Passport on 13 July
Seedrs, the equity crowdfunding platform, today announced it is expanding to the Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg region (Benelux) with the launch of its Amsterdam office.
The Amsterdam office will be responsible for building relationships in the Benelux startup and early-stage investment ecosystem, and for bringing Benelux dealflow to the Seedrs platform to raise capital.
Seedrs has long accepted investors and entrepreneurs from across Europe, and it has an office in Lisbon for software development. But in launching its Amsterdam office, Seedrs is putting a commercial team on the ground outside the UK for the first time.
Seedrs has already funded one Belgian company, Maily, which is an email platform for young children that is also backed by prominent venture capital firms Seedcamp and Faber Ventures. In October 2015 Seedrs announced a partnership with leading Benelux bank ING.
Successful Dutch entrepreneur David Mozes has joined Seedrs as Regional Manager Benelux. Prior to joining Seedrs, David pioneered light-as-a-service (LaaS) as co-founder of LED Lease. David began his career as an investment banker.
The launch of Seedrs’s Amsterdam office comes days after it was granted an EU-wide Financial Services Passport by the UK Financial Conduct Authority on 13 July. The passport allows Seedrs to provide services anywhere in the European Union.
Jeff Lynn, CEO and co-founder of Seedrs, said: “We have always had a pan-European vision for Seedrs, and the launch of our Amsterdam office brings that vision one step closer to reality. I have been very impressed by what I have seen of the early-stage ecosystem in the Benelux, and we made our first step into the region last year when we partnered there with ING. Now I am looking forward to Seedrs becoming a key player in financing startup and growth companies across the three countries.”
David Mozes, Seedrs’s Regional Manager Benelux, said: “I am thrilled to be joining Seedrs, which has firmly established its place at the leading equity crowdfunding platform in Europe. Having both been an entrepreneur and worked in finance, I have a strong sense of what is needed to make an early-stage investment platform successful in the Benelux. Seedrs already has all the right components in place, and now it is my and my team’s job to spread the word and bring the platform to the Benelux ecosystem.”
The launch of the Amsterdam office marks the beginning of on-the-ground expansion in Europe, and Seedrs intends to open further offices in the near future.
Seedrs does not expect Brexit to impact its plans in the Benelux or beyond. The company hopes that the final Brexit settlement will include preservation of the Financial Services Passport. If it does not, then Seedrs intends to seek regulation (and a new passport) in a remaining EU country, and it may use its Amsterdam office as its base to do so.
