Having now raised two rounds of investment with the help of Seedrs.com for our bespoke engagement ring brand, Taylor & Hart, I often get asked for advice about which company I would choose (if I could do it all again).
Having not worked with Crowdcube, the question for me really becomes, would I recommend Seedrs and why?
Over the years I have always passionately defended Seedrs and my reasoning was on several different levels.
1. Values – I have heard and read some negative things about Crowdcube from an ethics point of view, relating to how little support small campaigns get and how they over-state the amount of money they helped raised to include funds raised by the companies without their help. Seedrs, from my experience, has values that are more aligned to ours at Rare Pink in terms of their integrity, authenticity and passion for helping each other succeed.
2. Due Diligence – Comparing campaigns I have seen on Crowdcube and Seedrs, I think Seedrs are more diligent in terms of who they let on to the platform, making it harder for you to launch your campaign… and that’s a good thing. You want to have the best chance of convincing investors and if someone can tell you what needs improving before you’re investor ready, then I see that as value being added.
3. The Underdog – On a personal level, I wanted to work with Seedrs to help them to do well too. I think Seedrs has for some time been slightly smaller than Crowdcube (though not anymore it seems – now ranked number one in various categories of investment).
They both have similarly large number of investors. I believe you will have the same access to funding by working with either of them but I feel Seedrs try harder by having had to play catch up in the past.
What about the money?!
To be completely honest, I do feel that the most important thing everyone cares about is: “will the one platform help me to raise more, faster (or at all)?”
I can’t answer this accurately. Crowdcube has had more high profile successes from what I have seen but I also feel like more campaigns are live at any point in time compared to Seedrs, thus diluting investor interest.
The secret no one tells you when you start…
So let me close this post off with a little secret. We got more value out of Seedrs in what they do after you raise than we got during.
This is not to say they did not do everything they could to help us raise… what I am saying is that there is enormous value in the admin and legal work they do that would otherwise have involved me spending hours trying to learn my way around what is a confusing landscape.
For two years we raised without the aid of paid legal counsel. I DO NOT SUGGEST THIS – we learned on our second round that it is important to get legal advice once your funding round starts to get more complicated (think VCs, accelerators, options, parent-child company structures etc.); and we now have legal counsel.
The benefit of having Seedrs as an ally was huge and as a first time fund-raising entrepreneur you can not know how complicated things can get and how much work there is around the closing of a round.
So yes, I would pick Seedrs over Crowdcube and give them a solid 10/10 in terms of how likely I am to recommend them.