Great news once again as one of the biggest crowdfunding platforms Crowdcube has announced that it has now completed over 50 raises of £1 million or more. Half of the ventures involved have been backed by institutional or venture capital (VC) investors alongside the crowd. Cauli Rice closed its latest funding round on Crowdcube after raising £1.4m from 1038 investors, which lead them to achieving the accolade of 50th million-pound raised on Crowdcude.

This round of funding by Cauli Rice is to set in motion exporting its award-winning products overseas. This was quickly followed by electric vehicle charge point supplier POD Point, which raised almost £1.6m in a round that also attracted investment from VC firm Draper Esprit, and stock market investment platform Freetrade, which raised £1.1m in total.

Co-founder of Crowdcube’s, Luke Lang says:

“Our top 50 raises come from 13 different sectors, an indication of the vibrant diversity of businesses on Crowdcube and the zest investors have for backing innovative ventures of all kinds. Their founders are using the funds raised to stimulate transformational growth – many have already increased their teams, expanded into new markets and launched new products.”

Crowdfunding tends to attract more growth stage businesses, often VC-backed. The surge in venture-backed businesses raising finance on Crowdcube shows how different the funding landscape has changed over the last few years, crowdfunding is now the predominant way of raising finance in the UK.  

 A profile of Crowdcube’s 50 £1m raises: 

●       Between them, the 50 campaigns have raised a total of more than £100m on Crowdcube.

●       The first £1 million round was The Rushmore Group, which raised £1m in 2011. 

●       The largest equity raise was £6.6m, completed by Crowdcube itself. BrewDog takes the title for the largest raise on the platform after attracting £10m in investment via a bond. 

●       The fastest raise was challenger bank Monzo, which secured £1m in just 96 seconds in 2016.

●       The average amount raised by the businesses on the list is £2m.  

●       The most represented industry sector is food and drink (15 businesses on the list), followed by professional and business services (7) and manufacturing (7).

●       35 of the businesses that have raised £1m are based in London/south east, 8 in the south west, 3 in Scotland, 2 in the east of England and 1 in the north west.

Founder of Cauli Rice, Gem Misa, comments: “We’re over the moon at the results of our latest fundraise. Our investors (many of whom are repeat investors) have been so supportive, and seem to share our desire to see Cauli Rice succeed. We would not be anywhere without the power of the crowd and we are incredibly appreciative of that.”

Alongside Cauli Rice, POD Point and Freetrade, the £1m raisers include:

GripIt Fixings, which manufactures and sells the ‘World’s Ultimate Plasterboard Fixing’, and is backed by Deborah Meaden of Dragon’s Den. The business is currently pitching for a second time on Crowdcube to raise funds to develop and launch new products, following its first raise in March 2016 which hit £2m in five days - and has already reached £1.3m. Stocked in over 5,000 UK stores, GripIt’s products are exported to 32 countries.

London craft brewer Camden Town Brewery, which raised £2.7m in growth finance from 2,173 investors on Crowdcube in June 2015 to fund a new brewing site and expand its team of staff. In December of the same year it became the second UK crowdfunded business to successfully exit after it was bought by drinks giant AB InBev, unlocking returns for all of its shareholders.

Intelligent home security business Cocoon, which currently has a pitch live on Crowdcube and has already raised £1.9m. Cocoon is backed by the UK’s leading insurer Aviva Group Holdings which invested alongside the crowd and on the same terms. The Leeds-based company’s solution protects an entire home with a single digital device the size of a tennis ball, which uses the unique Subsound® technology to ‘listen’ for low frequency waves that enable it to detect the slightest movement. Cocoon is already used by customers in more than 55 countries.