With an investor community of over 376,300 members and more than £233,663,983 invested, the UK-based equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube co-founded by CEO Darren Westlake and CMO Luke Lang celebrated over 500 successful raises today, 512 to be exact. With Floom closing in quickly on £390,000 and Sugru and Bedrock Learning halfway to their campaign goals, successful campaigns will inch up to 515.
“We’re pleased to announce that we have now funded over 500 raises on Crowdcube. This comes after a great quarter where £27m was invested through the platform and, thanks to the backing of the crowd, 10 businesses raised over £1m, three of which were over £2m. These businesses include; GripIt, Wild Beer, ME+EM, Cocoon and Cauli Rice. Let’s also not forget Monzo, which recently returned to Crowdcube,” celebrated Crowdcube via its blog. “Backed by Passion Capital, Thrive Capital and Orange Digital Ventures, Monzo, which raised £1m in just 96 seconds, returned to Crowdcube in March for a follow-on round of investment. The business has achieved rapid user adoption with more than 100,000 users in the last year and now is raising £22m in its Series C round, with £2.5 million of the round being reserved for the crowd.”
Surpassing 500 closely coincided with the platforms celebrating its sixth birthday. During Q1 2017, Crowdcube partnered with Amazon Web Services, a collaboration made to assist the funding portal provide eligible companies with membership to the Activate program. Recapping Crowdcube’s 1Q 2017 stats likely makes investors excited about 2Q:
Between them, the 50 campaigns have raised a total of more than £100m on Crowdcube.- The first £1 million round was The Rushmore Group, which raised £1m in 2011.
- The largest equity raise was £6.6m, completed by Crowdcube itself. BrewDog takes the title for the largest raise on the platform after attracting £10m in investment via a bond.
- The fastest raise was challenger bank Monzo, which secured £1m in just 96 seconds in 2016.
- The average amount raised by the businesses on the list is £2m.
- The most represented industry sector is food and drink (15 businesses on the list), followed by professional and business services (7) and manufacturing (7).
- 35 of the businesses that have raised £1m are based in London/south east, 8 in the south-west, 3 in Scotland, 2 in the east of England and 1 in the north-west.
“Over the last two years, we’ve seen the amounts being raised on Crowdcube climb ever higher as crowdfunding grows in appeal and popularity and attracts more growth stage, often VC-backed, businesses,” Crowdcube blogged.