Pioneering ethical P2P/crowdfunding platform Abundance equity raise on Seedrs is now fully funded with more than the £1.2m target raised.  It took just 13 days in the end and attracted more than 750 investors, the majority of whom were Abundance’s existing customers, achieving the companies aim to share its success and ownership with its remarkably loyal customer base.

Independent jewellery company Fenton & Co. has announced its launch into the UK market, challenging the lack of transparency and pricing in the industry. The launch was enabled by a £850,000 seed funding round, led by social impact investor Mustard Seed. Investment was also received via The London Co-Investment Fund, as well as a number of angel investors, including two early investors into Bloom & Wild: Camila Dolan, and Akshata Murty.

11 companies have made their funding targets and closed their rounds on Seedrs in October:

Wahed Invest, the UK’s first halal online investment platform, has raised an additional £6m this year from existing investors to expand the reach of its global savings solution. The online investment platform received the funding from existing investors, Boston based Cue Ball Capital, and BECO Capital, a Middle Eastern Venture Capital fund known for backing a variety of regional start-ups. This brings its total funding to nearly £12m since inception and has raised Wahed Invest’s valuation to over £75m.

CrowdProperty, the specialist property peer-to-peer lender, has now repaid over £10,000,000 to lenders, continuing its 100% capital and interest payback track record.

Listening to investors at the start of a new business can make the difference between success and failure, according to new research from the UCL School of Management that highlights the boost that crowdfunding offers.

Investment platform Downing Crowd is launching a ‘7-day access’ bond which will invest a further £2.5 million for renewable energy generation and reserve power company, Bagnall Energy. 

Bagnall Energy, which is managed by Downing LLP, has funded more than £165 million of UK energy projects since launch in 2013.  It currently has a portfolio of 40 projects in operational solar, wind, anaerobic digestion and reserve power, across the UK.

Downing Crowd has already successfully raised £2.2 million for Bagnall Energy. To help fund its future pipeline of energy projects, Bagnall Energy plans to issue up to a total of £20 million of additional bonds. 

Crowdcube, the world’s first and largest equity crowdfunding platform, is pleased to announce that over 100 fundraisings have now taken place on the site that have raised more than £1,000,000 each.

Oliver Jones from the impact investing platform SeedTribe looks at the issues around making impact investment more accessible to millennials.

Seedrs, the leading private equity investment platform, has today published its latest Portfolio Update, an in-depth analysis of the characteristics and performance of the deals funded on the platform.

The Autumn 2018 edition of Seedrs’ Portfolio Update looks at the characteristics and performance of the 577 deals funded on the platform up to the end of 2017, up 202 deals from the previous report. The dataset continues to show that Seedrs investments, on a fair value basis, have seen outstanding performance on average when compared with other asset classes.

aescuvest and EIT Health have launched the first pan-European equity crowdfunding platform for European healthcare companies today: aescuvest.eu will be the number one such platform dedicated to foster and fund innovations from European start-ups and SMEs in an end-to-end digital process, and allow companies to promote campaigns and EU citizens to invest across borders. The platform will give both, retail and institutional investors access to best-in-class companies in the core health sectors biotechnology, medical technology and digital health. As prospectus-based security offerings, investment opportunities went through a thorough approval process. The start of the first campaign is expected in Q4 2018.

A novel anti-bacterial agent which has been developed in Scotland by MGB Biopharma for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infections, is to enter Phase II clinical trials following a newly-completed £1.3m fund raise from existing and new investors, supplementing a £2.7m grant awarded earlier this year by Innovate UK.