Seeking to help aspiring campaign organizers, three Crowdcube alums, Shoot, Renovagen, and Compare and Share, have decided to reveal their top tips to launching a successful funding round.
The equity crowdfunding platform shared:
“More and more startups are looking to crowdfunding as a way of raising finance, and as a result there are plenty of success stories to learn from. Three of the companies at London’s largest startup accelerator, MassChallenge UK, have successfully funded on Crowdcube so we asked them to share their top tips for crowdfunding success.”
While chatting with Shoot’s Nicola Gammon, the startup’s founder explained:
“Community is at the heart of Shoot’s philosophy, making crowdfunding a natural fit. Our members value what we do and want to support us. Why would we go to strangers?”
Gammon stated that she was able to tap into this community to gain incredible momentum and interest before the campaign even opened to investment. She noted:
“Start building relationships with your potential investors and customers from day one. We spent a few years building strong communication and trust with members, having regular consultation, and being very responsive to customers so we already had a relationship with them before we asked for their funding support.”
CEO and founder of Renovagen, John Hingley, stated:
“We had to raise money quickly and with minimum overhead effort. We felt that our business was easily understandable from a concept perspective and lent itself well to crowd investors looking to make investments with potential social and environmental impact – but which also could deliver great returns. The experience with Crowdcube was very good – they are a very professional team and the level of due diligence impressed me. They were a pleasure to work with.”
Hingley’s advice for those crowdfunding is this:
“Try to get 15-20% of your round committed up front to get your pitch off to a good start. Momentum is extremely important if you can get it.
- “Get on a Crowdcube organised pitching session to some of their regular investors. You will have a better chance of accessing and impressing the more serious investors there.”
- “Get your SEIS or EIS Advanced Assurance done in advance and bear in mind that tax relief is a key criteria for most of these investors so you need to know the rules of these schemes and have an ironclad defence of your compliance with the requirements ready.”
Co-founder and “Chief Sharer” of Compare and Share, Benita Matofska, added:
“As a company in the sharing economy, we wanted to engage the crowd in Compare and Share. We wanted to access more than capital, but also a crowd of ambassadors and tap into the collective intelligence of a whole network who become part of this amazing journey.
“Crowdfunding is incredibly hard work and it’s very tactical. You need to make time and allocate resource to running a successful campaign. It will take up every minute of your waking hours. What you put into a campaign is what comes back. If you can’t make time for this – then crowdfunding is not for you.”
Have a crowdfunding offering you'd like to share? Submit an offering for consideration using our Submit a Tip form and we may share it on our site!
