Crowdcube and Seedrs announced this week that they are to merge to form one of the world’s largest equity crowdfunding groups.
It feels a bit like one of those supergroups being formed! Major news this week for start-ups as two of our favourite crowdfunding businesses have decided to merge. Yes that’s right Seedrs and Crowdcube have thrown their lot in together to create one of the biggest platforms out there. It seems like a really logical step as both have a shared vision to create the world’s largest private equity marketplace.
Darren Westlake, CEO and co-founder of Crowdcube, commented: “Equity crowdfunding has redefined how many ambitious businesses raise investment and engage with their customers. Today’s agreement is an incredibly exciting milestone that will benefit high growth businesses, their investors who believe in their vision and the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem that supports them. Together with Seedrs, we can accelerate plans to further expand in the UK and overseas, launch innovative new products and improve our customers’ experience.”
Jeff Kelisky, CEO of Seedrs, said: “We are both fintech pioneers that have challenged the landscape of capital raising in Europe, building marketplaces for private equity investment. We believe that you need to be a player of greater scale to serve companies and the investors who support them. Now is the right time to bring our strengths together, in order to meet our common mission to deliver a step change in the accessibility and efficiency of private company investing. This will not only create value for ambitious companies and their investors, but also for the economies and communities that they serve. As we look to the future, we’ll be well positioned to build on our combined strengths and create a powerful global private equity marketplace that will transform the ecosystem of equity finance globally.”
Between the two they’ve helped over 1500 companies secure investment, including BrewDog, Revolut, Perkbox. We know a bunch of you guys have used and are using both platforms and we wish them both well in their shared next chapter.
What will happen next?
Far be it for us to speculate but it’s likely to be business as usual for the time being. At least until the Competitions and Mergers guys have green lighted the deal. So in short don’t expect a major change tomorrow.