Crowdfunding During Coronavirus: Crowdcube & Seedrs Campaigns Speak Out

What would be your advice to entrepreneurs who are thinking of launching?

I think what’s vital for other entrepreneurs wanting to raise capital now to communicate optimism to potential investors. In our case, we believe in our product and future and saw that investors shared our vision. So while it’s essential to take something as grave as a pandemic exceptionally seriously, which we do, we also have faith in the power of travel and exploration – especially without a suitcase by your side!

Cura Outdoors

How has the Coronavirus crisis affected your Seedrs campaign?

What would be your advice to entrepreneurs who are thinking of launching?

Common Objective (CO) is a B2B sourcing and information platform for the sustainable fashion industry and is currently live on Crowdcube. We caught up with Founder and CEO, Tamsin Lejeune, to hear her experience.

How has the Coronavirus pandemic crisis your Crowdcube campaign?

Covid-19 changed everything for us because of the timing of our campaign – which launched just before lockdown. Our pre-reg investors made commitments in a completely different environment. However, now that we are starting to see an end in sight, people are thinking about how they navigate the future and sourcing, and sustainability solutions are at the forefront which has increased interest. We revised our strategy and deck in response to the pandemic, and this went down well.

What would be your advice to entrepreneurs who are thinking of launching?

My advice for entrepreneurs would be to present your business in the context of the crisis and how you can offer solutions as we emerge from it.

Rejuvenation Water is a healthy soft drinks brand, stocked in major UK retailers. The company launched its first equity crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube in 2017 and is now back for a follow-up raise. We caught up with Founder & CEO, Kris Ingham, to see how this campaign has fared.

What would be your advice to entrepreneurs who are thinking of launching?

Be realistic. We decided to reduce our target and valuation before we launched in order to give us the best chance of success.

EstateGuru

Platform: Seedrs

How has the Coronavirus crisis affected your Crowdcube campaign?

What would be your advice to entrepreneurs who are thinking of launching?

 

Cranes

Platform: Seedrs

Sector: Food & Beverage
Launch date: 12/05/20
Amount raised: £150k+
Investors: 440+

How has the Coronavirus crisis affected your Seedrs campaign? 

That is a hard one. Seedrs did outline how they had seen this pandemic affect funding activity. With a massive drop straight after the announcement of the lockdown but then had recovered soon after to fairly normal levels. From our point of view, I know that a few investors would have been affected, but a large number of investor are still very active. With lockdown limiting a lot of other activities and increasing screen time this maybe have been anther factor balancing out the negative impact. We had a very strong campaign, and that’s because our business progress has been amazing, something to really shout about which has helped our success. If we did this campaign outside of the pandemic then maybe it would have been even more successful, but this was the right time for the business.

Lister’s Brewery is a West Sussex based brewer who is currently live on Crowdcube. We caught up with Co-founder, Katie Coakes, to hear her experience.

How has the Coronavirus crisis affected your Crowdcube campaign?

It has had an impact, but strangely, it seems to be a positive one. We have found that perhaps some of the investments may be smaller but are more frequent and consistent. The beauty of being a brewery is that people like the idea of owning a part of something tangible, and we have only really had competition from tech companies. There has also undoubtedly been less competition in general, and this has helped keep us high on the front page of Crowdcube. Crowdcube have also been supportive of changing some of the more stringent rules around crowdfunding, and this has helped us to navigate these unchartered waters.

What would be your advice to entrepreneurs who are thinking of launching?

Our advice would be – if you think you can get close enough to your target with your private raise, despite the virus, then you are in an excellent position to carry on and go public. If this is the bit you’re going to struggle with then perhaps now is not the right time. We were lucky that we had already got to 75% funded by our private network before the Covid-19 became an issue for businesses and this allowed us to then go to the Crowdcube community with a good amount of supporters already behind us. I would also say – consider your product, ours was not ideal given the almost entire shutdown of our industry, but we have managed to make it work. We know breweries are always very popular on Crowdcube, but we are one amongst a lot of tech and healthcare companies, and this had managed to give us some stand out on the site. I would also advise as much sincerity as possible for your updates and discussions, we have been sincere and open in these, and this has been appreciated, we ditched any ‘stunts’ we had planned to boost our profile. Certainly, a more serious approach has been beneficial.