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Congratulations, I'm interested to know how easy it is to raise money from Seedrs. Glad to hear a startup kept going after rejection and hopefully will continue

by brackin 14y ago

Congratulations, I'm interested to know how easy it is to raise money from Seedrs. Glad to hear a startup kept going after rejection and hopefully will continue to do so. I'm guessing you provided much more detail in your pitch and product than I can see on the public page. As all I see is "Discussion boards. Like tumblr, for forums." Which sounds a lot like Branch. Example: http://branch.com/b/freelancers-small-studios-what-s-in-a-name http://branch.com/b/freelancers-small-studios-what-s-in-a-na... They're working with publishers to create branch discussion sub-communities on popular publications.

buro9 14y ago
Seedrs has several layers of visibility as part of their regulatory requirements. What you're seeing is the least information. If you're registered and have passed the KYC checks, which include self-certification that you are an experienced investor, that you accept the risks involved, know you may lose everything, and that you prove your identity, etc... then you see the next layer. What investors see is much like a detailed KickStarter page, with details of the idea, the market, the team, the experience, how far we've come to date, what we'll spend the money on, etc. Finally there is what the entrepreneur sees, which is all of the above and then for every claim that you make in your proposal you need to provide evidence. Such as, if you say "We've made the database schema and believe that we can import other fora"... prove, provide links or documents to such evidence. I was really impressed by Seedrs validation process. It was very thorough. To the point of wanting to validate a work position from 10 years ago using multiple payslips at points within the employment to ensure that the statement that I'd been there multiple years was true. Even when you're declaring market size, a nebulous and vague thing at best, you're asked to prove the numbers at least are realistic and show research into the market. Once you submit a proposal you then go through a process of verification, where Seedrs will now read all of your statements and will suggest re-wording where necessary to ensure risk is communicated and to defuse liability should some event not come to pass: "We hope to", "We plan to". Once all of that is done, you are approved and get two choices: Go live, or make a video and subject that to approval before go live. I chose to go live immediately. To be successful with crowd-funding you cannot come in cold, you really should realise that investors will follow other investors and that the best thing you can do is to line up a lot of interested investors. I found 100 small investors, mostly my users, but a couple of friends too. And kept in touch with them via a forum, and also email. I followed their progress through the KYC checks and when the vast majority were through I alerted them all that I would now go live. All I was hoping, was that if I could push us to 50% of the goal, the investors unbeknownst to myself would step in and invest too. But I now believe that I'd done so well at lining up investors that virtually all of my fundraising was from investors known to me. I get to see investor names, unless they're opted to be anonymous. I'm afraid I cannot vouch for whether it is easy to raise money from Seedrs, just that it is via Seedrs. The tax advantage with SEIS ( http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/seedeis/index.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/seedeis/index.htm ) is ridiculously good, and if you're in the UK and want to raise money then definitely make sure to take advantage of this, it's win-win for everyone.

by brackin 14y ago

buro9 14y ago

Seedrs has several layers of visibility as part of their regulatory requirements. What you're seeing is the least information. If you're registered and have passed the KYC checks, which include self-certification that you are an experienced investor, that you accept the risks involved, know you may lose everything, and that you prove your identity, etc... then you see the next layer. What investors see is much like a detailed KickStarter page, with details of the idea, the market, the team, the experience, how far we've come to date, what we'll spend the money on, etc. Finally there is what the entrepreneur sees, which is all of the above and then for every claim that you make in your proposal you need to provide evidence. Such as, if you say "We've made the database schema and believe that we can import other fora"... prove, provide links or documents to such evidence. I was really impressed by Seedrs validation process. It was very thorough. To the point of wanting to validate a work position from 10 years ago using multiple payslips at points within the employment to ensure that the statement that I'd been there multiple years was true. Even when you're declaring market size, a nebulous and vague thing at best, you're asked to prove the numbers at least are realistic and show research into the market. Once you submit a proposal you then go through a process of verification, where Seedrs will now read all of your statements and will suggest re-wording where necessary to ensure risk is communicated and to defuse liability should some event not come to pass: "We hope to", "We plan to". Once all of that is done, you are approved and get two choices: Go live, or make a video and subject that to approval before go live. I chose to go live immediately. To be successful with crowd-funding you cannot come in cold, you really should realise that investors will follow other investors and that the best thing you can do is to line up a lot of interested investors. I found 100 small investors, mostly my users, but a couple of friends too. And kept in touch with them via a forum, and also email. I followed their progress through the KYC checks and when the vast majority were through I alerted them all that I would now go live. All I was hoping, was that if I could push us to 50% of the goal, the investors unbeknownst to myself would step in and invest too. But I now believe that I'd done so well at lining up investors that virtually all of my fundraising was from investors known to me. I get to see investor names, unless they're opted to be anonymous. I'm afraid I cannot vouch for whether it is easy to raise money from Seedrs, just that it is via Seedrs. The tax advantage with SEIS ( http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/seedeis/index.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/seedeis/index.htm ) is ridiculously good, and if you're in the UK and want to raise money then definitely make sure to take advantage of this, it's win-win for everyone.