The innovative, London-based Crowd For Angels is the first debt and equity site to be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). For investors, the platform claims to provide access to firms that would ordinarily be reserved for institutional money. Investors will also benefit from up to 50% tax relief through the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS).
Tony De Nazareth, Founder and Director of Crowd For Angels, commented:
“This is the first time that a directly regulated crowd funding platform combines debt and equity pitches in one place.
“We are challenging the status quo by developing new ways of doing things such as having a minimum and a maximum fund raising target for pitches which does away with the standard ‘all or nothing’ approach.
“The fact that we have a listed company as one of our opening pitches speaks volumes about the need for a new crowd funding model such as ours. The beauty of our platform is that a company can begin with raising seed capital and carry on being funded through to pre-IPO and when listed.”
On the borrower side, you only pay a commission if your fundraise is successful. The idea that a borrower can begin by using the platform’s equity services and later take advantage of its debt-based feature is intriguing. Crowd For Angels are not the first platform to try to aid businesses through multiple stages of the business cycle – but no platform has as yet nailed the approach.
The platform’s first pitches are now live. There’s an AIM-listed radiotherapy systems provider seeking a loan, and an early-stage film company and mobile software solutions company that are raising equity finance.
