Lately, the never-ending fountain of joy in our head office and among Smartlands ambassadors around the world has been blasting especially hard: Smartlands is in the final stages of preparing an equity round on Seedrs, and you should expect the launch shortly. We have successfully passed due diligence and have been greenlit by Seedrs to launch the campaign.
We are especially proud of this milestone because the finishing touches on our campaign are being applied while the global pandemic continues to ravage the planet. But, despite the uneasy times, we are confident that the situation will normalise very soon and people will get well. What is clear at this point is that the world will most likely not be the same, so we must now calmly look to the future and try to discern the paths for development in 2020 and the coming years. We will unveil our vision for the future in more detail in the coming days. In the meantime, we are in the final stage of preparing to launch our fundraising campaign on Seedrs.
In the unlikely event that you’re not familiar with Seedrs, we thought we’d do a short rundown of its latest achievements so our outlook would be as clear as can be to our future investors, friends, associates, and the rest of the members of the Smartlands community.
To put it simply, Seedrs is a perfect instrument for early- and mid-round funding of fintech companies – big and small, startups and mature businesses. In fact, you may remember that Revolut — easily, the grandest success story in fintech — got a major boost on Seedrs during its overwhelmingly successful second round of financing in July 2017 because Seedrs makes it a breeze putting trust in an enterprise you believe will reach new heights with your help: you create an account, get accredited, and start investing in your choice business. Apparently, investors are eagerly voting with their wallets for what Seedrs has to offer: as an investment platform, Seedrs experienced a record-breaking year in 2019, with £283 million invested in pitches, resulting in a whopping 49% increase over 2018. The Platform completed 250 deals in 2019, up from 186 in 2018, and delivered 7,858 investor exits on its secondary market across 317 businesses, bringing the all-time total since launch to 13,671.
Seedrs’ global reach is especially valuable to Smartlands. In 2019, Seedrs helped businesses raise funds across 16 geographies and received investment from 78 countries. 51% of the 250 completed deals were over £1 million, representing 89% growth in larger funding rounds compared with 2018. Highlights include Scottish fintech Paysend raising £10.7 million in Series B funding, Seedrs’ first Danish company, LuggageHero, completing a €1.5 million round, and AFC Wimbledon raising £2.4 million from over 5,000 investors in one of the UK’s largest public funding rounds for a football club.
All this is to say that for Smartlands, the choice of Seedrs as a platform for our latest funding round is far from random. To the already extensive business development toolbox Smartlands has at its disposal, Seedrs adds support across all stages of the fundraising lifecycle, helping us build momentum and reach our fundraising target so we can fulfill our goal of transitioning from a digital securities issuance platform to a global digital banking ecosystem. Following the raise, we will continue to develop our product and strive to acquire the best talent on the market, building a holistic ecosystem of Smartlands and the Smartlands-powered, digital-banking-like service Smartee.
But most importantly, with the move to Seedrs, we want to inspire our fanbase and bring as many of you as possible on board as shareholders, regardless of the size of your stake. Ultimately, that is the reason why we are going with Seedrs — to let those of you who already know, love, and trust our brand know that a raise with Seedrs is an all-access opportunity to become financially invested in the Smartlands’ future, long after our funding round is complete.
