Debbie Wosskow OBE launches female-focused crowdfunding platform

A crowdfunding platform specifically focused on supporting the UK’s female-led companies has launched today; headed up by Debbie Wosskow OBE, founder of Love Home Swap, and Anna Jones, CEO of Hearst Magazines UK.

AllBright Crowd – part of the AllBright platform which will also include AllBright Angel Network and AllBright Academy – will seek to discover and fund the “best” female entrepreneurs with the goal to make the UK “the best place in the world to be a female founder”.

The London-based platform is said to be the ‘first of its kind’ to solely target women and will invest in start-ups and seed-stage businesses through to established ventures.

The platform has also secured backing and support from an advisory board which includes Sherry Coutu CBE, Lord Chadlington, and Lord Davies of Abersoch CBE – among many other well-regarded business leaders.

Wosskow and Jones are said to have launched the AllBright platform to help tackle the funding gap between female-led and male-led businesses with recent research having shown that the majority of funding is currently directed at male-led companies.

Wosskow commented: “There is some exceptional female business talent in the UK just waiting to be discovered and accelerated. I’ve been on the journey they are making and understand acutely the difference accessing the right funding and support can make, as do our network of angel investors.

“AllBright delivers on two fronts – not only do we get to ‘give back’ investing in and sharing our knowledge with the next generation, but there is also a real financial opportunity for our investors to benefit from the untapped asset class of some of the UK’s best female entrepreneurs.”

The launch of AllBright comes some seven months after Indiegogo announced a “ground-breaking” initiative to support female-led crowdfunding campaigns with a mission to “remove bias from the funding equation”.