Tossed, a chain of “vibrant” healthy eating restaurants, went to Seedrs to raise £750,000 for a 5.5% equity stake in the growing company that gave a pre-money valuation of £12.8 million. The still open equity crowdfunding campaign is now over £1.2 million as over 630 investors have moved to back the firm with many receiving future discounts on food.
Neil Sebba, co-founder and Finance Director (Bean Counter), visited CNBC to share his experience on the European funding portal.
Asked why he skipped the local bank for finance and decided to ask for capital via the crowd. Sebba states, “we have a bank on board already, we work very closely with Santander, we took some debt from them a couple of years ago and we are in the process of renegotiating that but we are in the process of getting our guests involved, getting our suppliers involved, get our team involved and the seasoned investors on [Seedrs] as they may like what we are doing.”
Thomas Davies, CIO of Seedrs, joined Sebba in the discussion. Asked about exits, a valid question, Davies explained, “no, not yet, but that is not surprising. We launched in July of 2012 and we are three years in now, you are probably looking at a minimum 5 year holding period before this sort of asset class starts to make money”. Davies talks about how they make certain only viable businesses get on the platform. As we all know, investing entails risk, early stage more-so than other asset classes but then the return may do rather well.
Definitely worth a quick watch.
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