Woodford Investment Management just pumped £4m into London's crowdfunding platform Seedrs

London-based Seedrs, an active equity crowdfunding platform, has announced its £4m investment today (September 5) by Woodford Investment Management (Woodford).

The investment will be made through two Woodford-managed funds; Woodford Patient Capital Trust plc (WPCT) and Omnis Income and Growth Fund (Omnis).

This follows a £6m investment in Seedrs made by Woodford two years ago in 2015. In addition, Seedrs will conduct a crowdfunding campaign to give existing shareholders and new investors the opportunity to participate.

Jeff Kelisky, chief executive officer at Seedrs, commented: “We are thrilled to have Woodford leading the round with £4m, taking their total investment into Seedrs to £10m. The capital we are raising will allow us to deliver our next stage of growth.

“Equally important to everyone at Seedrs was gaining agreement that we could open up an amount for the crowd. We already have nearly 1,000 crowd investors following raises in 2013 and 2015 and many investors were disappointed to miss out on our last round.”

This profit will value Seedrs at £40m on a pre-money basis, representing a 27.2 per cent increase in share price from the company’s last fundraising in mid-2015 and a 135.9 per cent increase in share price from its late 2013 funding round.

The business is said to use the capital raised in this round to launch new product capabilties that will materially increase liquidity and return potential for businesses and investors, as well as build out increased sales and marketing efforts, and launch strategic partnerships.

Seedrs was named the most active investor in UK private companies by independent research agency Beauhurst, in February 2017. It also became the sole equity crowdfunding platform appointed to the Royal Bank of Scotland Capital Connections programme this year.

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