News

Beauhurst have released their Q3 market update, which analyses every publicly-announced equity fundraise of the quarter. We’ve also recently released our shareholder update for Q3, which you can read here. We’ll be taking a deep dive into these two reports to evaluate any trends or patterns in the market, including the spike in robotics in AI which you can learn more about, here.

According to Beauhurst’s report, ‘2019 is now the best year of equity funding in terms of pounds invested.’ This trend is certainly something we’ve experienced here at Crowdcube, as Q3 has been another record-breaking period for us. We’ve seen £39m invested into 58 wonderful businesses, an increase of 49% from Q3 2018. We’ve also broken the £2m revenue mark for the first time in a quarter, with our total standing at £2.2m.

While pounds invested has hit record highs, Beauhurst report a decline in overall deal numbers. This isn’t something we’ve seen reflected in the analysis of our quarter, with our funded pitches increasing by 14% compared to Q3 2018. What we have seen is a ‘significant shift towards larger deals’, as Beauhurst puts it, with 13 of our raises this quarter closing at over £1m.

The report continues, ‘A greater opportunity has opened up for larger, later-stage deals in recent quarters. More and more businesses have scaled to the point of requiring, and being able to take on, huge amounts of capital.’ Of the 58 businesses that have funded with us this quarter, the largest rounds were with later-stage businesses (12 were seed rounds, 28 were early-stage and 18 were growth stage).

Fintech remains on top in terms of the number of raises and amount raised. Mammoth campaigns from the likes of Curve and Chip saw a total of £14.7m of fintech funding pass through our platform this quarter alone, accounting for 38% of total funds raised for the quarter. While fintech still wears the crown, AI is hot on its heels. According to Beauhurst’s report, a massive £674m was raised for AI companies this quarter through 35 deals. We’re also seeing a spike in interest for AI and robotics, which we’re encouraging through our new partnership with Britbots. Together we’ll be seeking the most promising emerging tech businesses in the UK and helping them move into their next phase of growth, with Britbots expert capital, fuelled by the power of crowds. You can find out more, here.

Co-founder and CMO Luke Lang sums up this period’s success: “Our fantastic third-quarter results show that it is possible to thrive in spite of the gloomy economic backdrop in the UK and Europe,”. It really has been a wonderful quarter, and we can’t wait to see what the last few months of 2019 will bring.

Here’s a quick video roundup of our Q3 highlights: