Equity Crowdfunding has proven to be good and very popular by offering and allowing alternative means to borrow or lend money. It is the process where people invest in an early staged company in exchange for the shares of this company. In this article we will highlight the top 10 Equity Crowdfunding Startups that you can see booming in 2017:
1) Crowdcube:
This company has offered a lot of firms the opportunity to get funding. Its clients are diverse in nature and work in different lines of business. It is an award winning leading investment platform in the UK. Investors get to see a plan and a video that will explain why the company is seeking funding in additional to the potential rewards they are going to gain. It offers a variety of investment, debt and funding options to cater for different needs.
2) Seedrs:
Seeders focuses on helping entrepreneurs get their first seed for investment. They offer support before, during and after the fundraising process to ensure that their investors are taking part in a successful investment. It connects with active entrepreneurs and investors from more than 48 countries.
3) Syndicate Room:
This is considered to be the only investor-led equity fundraising platform and offers a different business model where the listed companies are already backed up by business professionals who assess the whole deal and invest their own money as well. Members who are not “business angels” are also offered the opportunity to invest side by side with the professionals.
4) Crowdfunder:
This is UK’s leading crowdfunding platform. It aims at connecting projects with communities to encourage business growth all across the UK. It held an equity fundraiser with sister group Crowdcube in 2014. This made it the fastest equity crowdfunding project ever which also allowed different and new investors to take part in the crowdfunding community. Its shareholders represent some of the biggest for profit and not for profit organizations.
5) CrowdShed:
This company aims to be the primary platform for community and social investment. It is interested in discovering the interesting funding opportunities to promote social lending and crowdfunding. This business model enables individual investors and organizations to have a positive social impact on the society and different communities by giving an opportunity to social enterprises, projects and charities. It is mainly concerned with social investment that gives equal opportunity to all investors in order to take part, rather than focusing only on rich investors. A large number of the crowdfunding opportunities give the investors the chance to benefit from 30% income tax relief on the invested money.
6) Spacehive:
This company mainly focuses on public and community spaces which are publicly accessible by everybody. This includes providing funding for the rejuvenation of public parks, town streets, public facilities, gyms and green areas. Its business model is rather different because the contributors help fund the capital cost of building or landscaping projects in their area, without owning these projects or expecting a return on the contribution.
Shadow Foundr is a UK based crowdfunding platform founded in 2010. The platform gives you the opportunity to follow the lead of experienced investors before committing to any investment opportunites. All opportunities are funded to a minimum of 30% before they appear on the platform, meaning your investment has serious backing before you commit. Shadow Foundr has raised in excess of £80m in equity funding, from their networks of business angels and investors over a period of 6 years. And in this 2017, has many prominent companies and startups raising funds through the website. Check it out
8) Zopa:
With its launch in 2005, Zopa became the world’s and UK’s biggest lender. Its aim has always been offering borrowers the best opportunity by matching them with lenders online and offering better loan terms than that offered by banking institutions. Its business model was innovative at the time because it conducted all of its operations online. Today it is still contributing in reshaping the loan and lending market by offering no repayment fees and the fact that applying for Zopa loan doesn’t affect the individual’s credit rating.
This company’s business model allows people to directly lend money to small businesses. It runs fundraising operations in the UK, the US, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. Over 50 000 people have contributed in fundraising and investing in more than 15 000 businesses through Funding Circle UK. It is supported by the British Business Bank which is owned by the UK Government, and has actually invested more than 40 million pounds at the same time as other investors to support the economic growth by lending money to small businesses.
10) LendInvest:
This is UK’s first peer-to-peer lending platform that solely focuses on commercial and residential mortgages. As the financial markets around the world collapsed in 2008, the founders of this platform saw an opportunity to enable investors to find and invest in new loans. It has contributed to the rise in the financial sector by offering nontraditional loan and investment solutions in the real estate sector.
These companies listed above and many others not mention in this article provide many crowdfunding sources in the UK, making it easy for you to start and run your business in the UK. Contact them and find out how they can help you.
