COMPANY A-Z

Crowdcube

Crowdcube is the first crowdfunding website in the world to offer people equity in exchange for their investment. It aims to make access to finance easier for entrepreneurs of newly formed and growing small businesses.

Instead of competing for limited business angel or venture capital funding, start-ups can use Crowdcube as a platform to connect with a nation of “armchair dragons” to find investment. Entrepreneurs can showcase their business and investment potential to thousands of micro-investors, ordinary people rather than high net worth individuals, by uploading a “dragons’ den” style video pitch, images and supporting documents. Spreading the word about a pitch is made easy via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter sharing links on their dedicated Crowdcube webpage. People can support an idea, person or business by investing small amounts of money – from as little as £10 – in exchanges for shares in the business.

The task of securing business investment is notoriously difficult. Banks adopt a no-risk approach to lending while business angels and VC funding are difficult to access. Crowdcube is democratising an age-old model for raising business finance by empowering the “crowd” to pool small amounts of investment money and give Britain’s start-ups a much needed boost. Crowdcube is the next generation of business investment.

• Website