Verto Homes, a London-based builder that creates sustainable homes, launched an equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube to raise £1 million. Within just a few hours, the initiative successfully secured 41% of its targetted goal (£415,000) from 14 investors.
Founded in 2010 by entrepreneurs, Tom Carr and Richard Pearce, Verto Homes stated it designs, builds, and sells intelligent, sustainable homes that produce and store clean energy from the sun. The company noted that none of their homes burn fossil fuels for lighting or heat and each is featured automation technology and is controlled by a smartphone app, called Vesta, which was launched on iTunes in 2015. The homes are available starting at £190,000.
“Tom and Richard set up Verto Homes because the way homes are built in the UK has to change and it has to change now. Why? Because the national house builders have been building the same traditional and highly unsustainable homes for decades and it is dramatically contributing to global warming. In total 27% of the UK’s carbon emissions come from the residential housing sector, so if we want to reduce people’s carbon footprint, their homes are the obvious place to start.”
Since its launch, the company has successfully raised £8.9 million through crowdfunding platforms Funding Circle and AngelsDen from over 22,000 individual investors.
“We have built 37 homes with a Gross Development Value (GDV) of over £12 million, won numerous awards and attracted high profile local and national coverage. Most importantly, we have transformed people’s lives by building sustainable housing developments that offer an all encompassing zero carbon lifestyle. In a recent round of equity crowdfunding, we raised £900k from Angels Den investors. These funds were used for the purchase of our Hilgrove Mews site. We’ve also worked with investors from around the world who have backed our development projects on an equity basis. So far, we’ve raised £4.4 million in private equity for the purchase of development sites.”
Funds from the Crowdcube campaign will be used to finance expansion of the business, through joint ventures, further development of its home automation software and hardware, purchasing plant and machinery and growing its in-house team.
The initiative is set to close mid-August.
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