Republic (Seedrs)

While we had a great experience promoting our business and raising funds, two issues prevented this from being a five-star experience. First, some investors who committed through the platform reversed their pledges during the live campaign. This disrupted the campaign’s momentum and ultimately limited how much we were able to raise. Second, there was confusion and miscommunication between all parties after we secured funding. As a result, both our SEIS and EIS submissions to HMRC were made on the same day, which prevented investors from receiving their tax relief certificates in a timely manner. A lengthy exchange over the following two years delayed this even further.

We raised a total of £720,000, with Seedrs providing a valuable platform to top up our round. The process was smooth and straightforward, though the size of their investor base was smaller than anticipated. The majority of the funds raised came from our existing community. However, Seedrs served as an effective tool for marketing the raise and allowing supporters to invest smaller amounts, which helped deepen engagement with our audience.

Republic, formerly Seedrs is a good platform that has access to inviduals who may wish to support and invest in your business. The upside - they have a big user base and can get traction within their base. The downside(s). 1) When you are running a campaign there is a disproportionate pull on your time reviewing questions and forums from would be investors who could have a ticket size from £10 to £10,000. You have no way of telling and everyone who is an investor as the right to post a forum question. If no ignore the question, no matter its relevance, you are deemed non communicative. 2) The cost of the campaign is high if you are raising <£500k. There are fixed costs to absorb about campaign set up and access to marketing and distribution factors. Consider these carefully when you work out the cost of capital 3) Republic sell you more through the process "access to VHNW or bigger investors - email campaigns etc" that you t think should be free from the start. Each cost between 2.5k to 5k - adding more to cost of capital without any shared success fee. 4) They claim that the investors are also great advocates and come with hidden value. Believe that at your peril.