Seedrs, “the most active investor in UK private companies” is rebooting its Alumni Club portal to reposition the value proposition for early stage businesses in the UK. According to Seedrs, this relaunch comes with some prominent names dedicated to boosting UK entrepreneurs. The partner companies include; Google, Amazon Launchpad, Amazon Web Services, Stripe, the Department for International Trade, CharlieHR, Hubble and Hired. Each of these entities have pledged to assist to take businesses funded on Seedrs to the next level
Seedrs says their Alumni Club currently forms the largest cohort of early stage businesses in the UK and this revamp will serve the best of British startups through a dedicated portal which is accessible exclusively to the Seedrs portfolio of funded businesses. Additionally, Seedrs said it will be announcing soon a host of new strategic partnerships, which will provide exclusive offers and services no other platform will offer.
Since platform launch in 2012, Seedrs has funded over 500 deals with more than £220 million invested into campaigns on the platform. Seedrs explains that unlike some other platforms the support doesn’t stop at raising money. Seedrs’s mission is to be the “life-span platform”, supporting its portfolio companies along their journey. This is crucial to Seedrs’ long term objectives.
Seedrs reports that existing partners of the Alumni Club are from sectors including Retail, HR & Recruitment, Finance & Accounting, Legal, Marketing & PR, Office Space, Product & Technology and Strategy. A diverse and varied selection of partners is indicative of the support funded companies will have for all areas of their business giving them the tools 
essential for immediate growth.
Shameel Khan, Portfolio Manager at Seedrs, explains;
“We have been working on developing an amazing post-raise experience for our impressive alumni companies and we are excited to re-launch the new portal this summer. We have a host of world-class partners already signed up, but there are some incredibly exciting deals to announce in the coming weeks that will really raise the bar. The long-term success of our portfolio businesses is instrumental to Seedrs own success which is why we take our Seedrs Alumni Club so seriously.”
Iain McDougall, UK Country Manager at Stripe, an Alumni Club partner, calls the initiative a fantastic opportunity to help growing businesses reach their full potential;
“For a B2B business, the opportunity to reach an enormous community of hyper-growth SMEs is extremely enticing and we are excited to be a part of the Seedrs Alumni community.”
Everyone has a vested interested in the sustainability and future success of a crowdfunded business. The Seedrs Alumni Club’s mission to help its portfolio companies develop into scalable and profitable businesses. A one-stop ecosystem that doesn’t quit after the crowdfunding campaign has closed.
“Since raising funds on Seedrs, Wriggle is growing quickly. We are processing an increasing number of payments every month and expect our current figure to be doubled by November,” says Rob Hall, CEO and co-founder at Wriggle, an alumni company. “Through the Seedrs Alumni Club we have access to an exclusive offer from Stripe, a global payment processing platform, which will increase our efficiency dramatically.”
Some of Seedrs successfully funded companies include: employee perks portal Perkbox which raised over £4.3 million from over 360 investors, travel money platform WeSwap, which raised £2.4 million from almost 3,000 investors; the UK’s fastest growing P2P lender Landbay, which has raised over £5 million in multiple rounds from over 700 investors, beauty on-demand service blow LTD, which raised £1.3m from 295 investors; healthy eating high street brand Tossed, which raised £1.34 million from 661 investors; award-winning cloud accounting software, FreeAgent, which raised £1.21 million from over 700 investors and recently IPO’d on LSEG AIM becoming the first equity crowdfunded business to list on the public market.
Saurav Chopra, CEO and co-founder at Perkbox, adds that the opportunities are twofold: Perkbox is both a Seedrs alumni as well as an official partner offering perks to other portfolio companies;
“It is a truly innovative and impressive community to be a part of and it reinforces that Seedrs has a vested interest in the success of its impressive portfolio of funded companies.”
