Online equity investment platform Venture Founders have raised £40 million worth of funds for companies since its launch at the end of 2014, with 87 percent of campaigns being successfully funded.
The average funding round on the site stands at £1.8 million, with 85 percent of the VentureFounders portfolio having institutional backing from VC firms. Unlike several other crowdfunding platforms, VentureFounders offers investment opportunities in collaboration with leading venture capital firms or angel networks with established track records and sector expertise. This approach is a growing trend in the sector, offering more security for investors.
Co-Founder and Managing Director, James Codling, says of the site: “We designed VentureFounders to meet the needs of sophisticated investors who were interested in equity crowdfunding, but couldn’t access the sort of quality opportunities they thought had the most potential to succeed. We’ve worked hard to build up our network and ensure that smart UK scale-ups want us to back their growing business, alongside their institutional investors.
“85 per cent of our investment portfolio now has institutional backing, which has resonated well with our investor base, who want to know sufficient due diligence has been carried out on the businesses in which they invest.”
VentureFounders is designed to make angel and venture capital-style investing more accessible, affordable and transparent to allow everyone to invest in companies they wish to support.
Codling has significant plans to grow the business in 2017, adding, “We now have a lot of momentum behind our business model and highly ambitious growth targets for this year.
“After a lot of groundwork to create an experience that caters for sophisticated investor, the wheels are in motion for us to now ramp up our operations and significantly increase the number of high class opportunities funding through the platform, and the volume of investment they receive.”
VentureFounders’ portfolio companies also continue to grow with the possibility of the platform’s first monetisation event happening in 2018. The platform plans to release an update on the performance of its portfolio companies in the second quarter of 2017.
Codling concluded, “We are very excited by some of the updates we are receiving from our portfolio businesses and we have seen a significant uplift in the value of our underlying portfolio in 2016”.