Welsh start-up Veeqo raises £120,000 in Seedrs funding

Welsh tech start-up Veeqo has closed its round of funding on crowdfunding site Seedrs, raising £120,000 from 32 investors.

The investment marks the second time Swansea-based Veeqo has used the online fundraising platform, following a previous round that raised £30,000 from 66 investors.

Veeqo, started by e-commerce retailer Matt Warren, is a web-based app for online retailers which claims to allow its users to manage all their orders and stock in one place without having to keep track of a multitude of websites.

The funding will allow further development for the firm, which is part of a small but growing tech sector in south Wales.

Matt Warren, founder of Veeqo, commented: “Crowdfunding itself was the main draw to how I decided to raise investment. Angel investment can be a tricky process and you often have to go down and meet each angel personally, which can be a time consuming process.

“It makes more sense for start-ups, angels and other investors to all be together to use one platform. An advantage I saw to Seedrs was the nominee share structure and the platform itself looked nice and just worked better than the others.”

Warren also lends his help to tech start-up community Swansea Start, sharing his experiences with crowdfunding and as an entrepreneur in the region in an effort to boost the south Wales tech sector.

He said: “There was nothing in this area for start-ups. At the time I didn’t even know any other tech start-ups existed. But with two big universities, there’s a lot of talent coming out of this area and a lot of it will be lost to London.

“Not only that, but Swansea is a great place to live with the beach in the bay and mountains behind. Compared to London the start-up scene isn’t as big, but in the past three or four months of working with entrepreneurs though Swansea Start we have attracted a lot of people. We’ve also been talking to the local universities and council and are working towards creating a tech hub down here in Swansea.”