Seedrs secures record breaking £2.5m investment through its own platform

Seedrs has announced that it has raised £2.58m via its own platform, the largest funding amount ever secured through an equity crowdfunding site.

Having hit its original £750,000 target in a few hours when it launched in November, the London-based crowdfunding start-up extended its campaign and has secured the world-record sum in just over a month with backing from over 909 investors, in return for a share of 33.3% in the business.

Launched in 2012 and featured in the Startups 100 2013, Seedrs looks to support early-stage and pre-revenue start-ups to secure investment by focusing on addressing the funding gap experienced by high potential businesses.

To date, the site has helped to fund £6m to over 60 businesses and claims to have scaled at an annual rate of 836%.

Having opened its platform to investors and entrepreneurs throughout Europe last month, marking another world first, the equity crowdfunding site plans to utilise the funding to support its overseas strategy and “help it grow more quickly”.

Jeff Lynn, chief executive and co-founder of Seedrs, commented:

“We were completely overwhelmed by the support our campaign received. We see this as a tremendous validation of equity crowdfunding, our model and our business, and we want to thank everyone who has invested for joining us on our journey.

“For most entrepreneurs, raising £2m is a long, painful process. Using our own platform we’ve shown how start-ups can harness their customers’ enthusiasm to raise money quickly and efficiently.”