As AltFi News reported last week, Crowdcube secured £3.8m of funding from venture capital firm, Balderton Capital. As part of the Series B equity raising round, £1.2m was sought to be raised from the 'crowd' at the same valuation. This crowd part of the round opened at midday today and it took 16 minutes for the £1.2m target to be reached, bringing the total for the round to £5m with 141 investors in total. The average amount invested was more than £8,500. The Crowdcube website might be running a touch slower than normal at the moment – perhaps caused by all those investors trying to get a piece of the action?
This round values Crowdcube at £19.5m. Previous rounds in 2011 and 2013 raised £320k and £1.5m and valued the company at £3.6m and £7.1m respectively.
The £5m raised will be used to expand Crowdcube's operations both within and beyond the UK. Among the platform’s plans are to double its team to 50-strong, open news offices in London and Scotland, expand its Exeter-based HQ and to add to the seven international joint ventures that have already been established.
After the announcement of the deal last week, Darren Westlake, CEO and Co-Founder of Crowdcube, commented:
“We’re delighted to secure growth finance from such a renowned VC who will undoubtedly add tremendous value both strategically and operationally. We’ve built a pioneering and award-winning service over the last few years. This investment, alongside the crowd, puts us in an even stronger position to provide essential growth finance for businesses and inspire a new generation of investors.”
Darren commented further following the successful crowd-financed portion of the fundraise:
“We’re delighted to have given everyday investors the opportunity to invest in our fast growing business. This record-breaking fundraise from our crowd of registered investors at the same time as backing by an established VC firm is a huge thumbs up for our business, team and the growth path that we outlined.
“This is the first time that any sizeable fundraise has meshed traditional and alternative finance methods and we expect to see more of this in the future. Crowdcube is in a fantastic position to pursue our growth plans and continue to support both investors and small and growing businesses in their investment and finance requirements.”
