Seedrs reports 2017 has been the equity platform's most successful year ever

Seedrs, a popular equity crowdfunding platform, has announced that 2017, for the company, has been its most successful year to date.

The investment platform has achieved numerous things, including awards, oversubscribed funding rounds, deals and the launch of the industry’s first functional secondary market.

Jeff Kelisky, CEO at Seedrs, reflected: “Since joining Seedrs in January, I have been hugely impressed and delighted by what we have built and the opportunity we have ahead of us.

“The success of so many of our portfolio companies validates everything we are working hard to achieve, but also the essence of what equity crowdfunding stands for - helping ambitious businesses thrive with patient capital, and deliver sizeable returns to investors.”

In the first half of the year, Seedrs announced a move for the sector with the launch of a secondary market after recognising the growing demand for liquidity from investors.

The product allows shareholders in Seedrs portfolio businesses to trade shares during a one-week window each month.

Since the June 2017 launch, share lots in 126 different businesses have been traded, with investors achieving 682 exits through the process.

The Seedrs secondary market has continued to grow, with five times the number of shares listed in the December trading window as had been listed in the market’s first window in June.

In addition to the many investor exits achieved through the secondary market, Seedrs saw two company-level exits in 2017. This included on-demand beauty startup, Blow LTD, sell shares to Debenhams.

Furthermore, for the second year running, from Seedrs’ own analysis of data from independent research firm Beauhurst, indicated that the company is the most active investor in UK private companies of 2017.

Seedrs broke records this year with its funding rounds, too, and has now surpassed £300m invested into campaigns on the platform since launch, with over 560 deals funded to date.

Kelisky concluded: “Seedrs has been live for five years, and in a long term asset class where we have always talked about returns from the seven year mark onwards, the trajectory is already incredibly positive.

“2017 has been a standout year for both Seedrs and the wider space, but we have long been looking ahead to 2018 and planning how we can continue to lead the equity crowdfunding space with technology, game-changing products and many more portfolio success stories.”

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