‘World first’ investment crowdfund reaches £500,000 target

 

Fuel.Ventures, a newly formed fund led by one of Europe’s leading technology entrepreneurs and investors, Mark Pearson, partnered with Europe’s leading equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs to give everyday investors access to a pipeline of high growth European e-commerce start-ups.

 

 To date, 274 investors have helped the fund push past its half a million pounds target.

 

When the crowdfunding started, Mark Pearson became the first successfully exited entrepreneur and angel investor to set up an investment fund and open it up to everyone.

 

After aiming to raise £500K from investments of as little as £100, Fuel.Ventures’ world-first crowdfunded investment fund has reached its target.  The crowdfunding page can be seen here: www.seedrs.com/startups/fuel-ventures.

 

At the time of writing, 274 individual investors have contributed to the £539,300 raised in the six weeks since the page went live, which will be used as Fuel.Ventures invests in its pipeline of businesses. It is, as far as is known, the first time a venture capital investor has successfully raised investment through equity crowdfunding.

 

Although the target was £500,000, it is important to highlight that the fund is open-ended, so interested investors are still able to invest.

 

Investing in early stage e-commerce businesses is very difficult for individual private investors to do. By raising funds on Seedrs, Fuel Ventures has opened up the sector, which historically was reserved to technology venture capital funds, to everyday investors.

 

Mark has a proven record of finding, vetting and nurturing high growth very early stage e-commerce business that possess the ability to scale quickly; opportunities that will now be available to the crowd.

 

Investing in a select number of start-ups, Fuel Ventures will take a very hands on approach to developing the next generation of leading entrepreneurs and business in the e-commerce space.

 

A video highlighting the opportunity can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/user8225857/review/128022297/881aceebff

 

Fuel.Ventures invests in a select portfolio of EIS eligible European e-commerce companies. The fund will focus on high-growth technology-based transactional businesses from incubation and inception (super-early seed), to seed and post launch (late seed), as well as series A businesses showing exceptional signs of growth.

 

The fund is led by Mark Pearson, a serial e-commerce entrepreneur who started Markco Media, the parent company of discount websiteMyVoucherCodes.co.uk for just £300 from his bedroom. It grew to be a multi-national company which sold in 2014 in a deal worth up to £55m. Mark’s 10 personal investments (including as an early investor in Ve interactive, an e-commerce SAAS provider now valued at £1.25bn) have significantly outperformed European Venture Capital.

 

Mark Pearson, Co-Founder of Fuel.Ventures commented,

“It’s fantastic to have received such support and to have gone past the initial £500,000 target, especially with this being the first time that everyday members of the public have had the opportunity to invest in this way. It’s unheard of for investors to share their pipelines with everyday investors, but together we believe that we can provide early-stage technology businesses with the investment that they need to grow.

 

“I’ve built and invested in a number of successful e-commerce businesses so I know well what it takes to succeed. Fuel Ventures will use this experience to invest in and accelerate the growth of the next generation of entrepreneurs in the sector. By providing capital, experience and expertise to the companies we invest in we aim to achieve both significant and rapid growth”.

 

Jeff Lynn, CEO of Seedrs commented,

"The Fuel.Ventures equity crowdfunding campaign marks a unique milestone in the evolution of venture capital. For a highly successful entrepreneur and angel investor to build a highly curated fund with crowd participation is an interesting opportunity for investors large and small.”

 

 

“By making it possible for people to invest directly into a fund carefully curated and managed by such an experienced team, Seedrs and Fuel.Ventures are stepping one step closer to democratising finance and breaking down the barriers between crowd investors and traditional City gatekeepers."

 

 

Influitive announces $30.5M investment round

 

OurCrowd portfolio company Influitive announced a $30.5 million series B investment.

 

The round was led by Canadian VC firm Georgian Partners. It also included angel investments from the founders and CEOs of Influitive’s key strategic partners including Marketo, Hootsuite, HubSpot, and Gainsight. 

 

OurCrowd and its investors participated in the first closing of this round with an investment of $1M. OurCrowd has the opportunity to invest an additional $1M in a second closing later this month.

 

 

This funding news comes as Influitive signs its 250th customer, hires its 100th employee, and engages more than 20,000 active advocates on its platform each month. 

 

 

Facebook-style finance app invstr taps into wisdom of the crowds

 

Invstr’s new Fb-style social stream and challenge feature helps you invest better anywhere, anytime.

 

invstr, the acclaimed mobile app that democratises access to financial information today announces major iOS and Android app updates that overhaul the user experience to make invstr more social, collaborative and easier to use. The major iOS and Android app update will include a new ‘future’ chart allowing traders to compare their predictions with other players and also to share predictions and activity on other social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The aim is to allow people to tap into “the wisdom of the crowds”.

 

invstr features a unique crowdsourced game that predicts the prices of individual stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities, enabling investors to weigh the strength of market convictions immediately when making real-world investment decisions. The app has also been praised for providing aspiring investors and professional financiers on-demand access to financial data, such as in-depth financial news, live market data and professional research previously requiring an expensive subscription terminal.

 

With the widespread Bloomberg terminal outage in April, financial professionals around the world were left without access to the real-time market data and news they rely on to make investment decisions. The invstr app offers a favourable mobile alternative to Bloomberg and other expensive subscription terminals by providing sophisticated, on-demand financial information directly to mobile devices for a fraction of the price.

 

The overhaul gives invstr a single feed resembling social network news streams. The new invstr Feed includes real-time price predictions, status updates and other social activity from users and their contacts. It also enables users to make a price prediction with a single tap, directly access detailed information for each financial instrument, view charts of the future and share opinions, in a single thread.

 

The new invstr features released today include:

 

·         Social login via Facebook and Google+ for one-click registration, profile creation and easy connection with existing and new users

·         Single tap to predict the prices on individual stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities

·         View your contacts’ price predictions and copy or submit your own with a single tap

·         The ability to like, comment on and share your contacts’ price predictions

·         A new “challenge” feature that lets users compete against their contacts’ predictions

·         A new “future” chart that allows a user to view all of his or her predictions and compare them to the invstr community and individual contacts

·         A new “analyse” feature to access detailed charts, news, calendar information and topic discussions for any financial instrument

·         The ability to post status updates to the invstr Feed

·         Immediate access to status updates, comments or news articles shared by your contacts in the invstr Feed

·         The ability to create personal watchlists and customise the display order of the stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities you care about

·         Integrated social media features that allow users to share prediction activity and financial news on Facebook and Twitter

 

“We created invstr to give even the most casual investors fast, mobile access to in-depth market data, news and analysis,” said invstr CEO Kerim Derhalli, adding, “now we’re expanding invstr into a true financial social network by streamlining the app, making it simple to take part in financial conversations.”

 

Because of invstr’s unique combination of technology, news, and financial information, Derhalli is a 2015 finalist for the Talent Unleashed Awards, one of the judges being Sir Richard Branson. Before founding invstr, Derhalli built an impressive 30-year track record of building, growing and managing multi-billion dollar businesses, and has served as Global Head of Equity Trading, Head of European Equities, Global Head of Commodities, and Global Head of Emerging Market Equities at Deutsche Bank.

 

 

Invstr is now available on the iTunes App Store and on Google Play.