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Everything businesses need to know about crowdfunding

19 August 2014

Intoduction to crowdfunding

This Crowdfunding guide aims to help micro-SMEs make an informed decision about whether or not it’s the right source of finance for them, how to maximise success and provides direction to resources to help make this work.

In 2013, 95% of UK businesses employed less than 10 people. That’s 4.7 million micro-businesses vying for space to grow in a persistently tough economic environment.

Until the banks release the tight grip on their reserves, micro-SMEs sometimes have to seek alternative forms of funding to overdrafts and bank loans. Crowdfunding is becoming more popular for many.

Crowdfunding is a way of raising money from lots of people via a website. Businesses with a good idea pitch their project online and offer rewards or financial returns for people that pledge or invest money.

However there’s a lot more to crowdfunding than just raising funds. It’s a great way of building a community of followers, engaging with a target audience and establishing long term relationships with those who will support the business into its future.

Many of us have perhaps heard about crowdfunding for business. But start-ups and micro-SMEs that are considering using it to raise funds need to fully understand it before diving in. That way they are more likely to reap the rewards they’re after.

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What is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is becoming much more popular as a form of raising business funds. Since the beginning of 2014, businesses have been raising £1,700 per hour through it, making it worth a predicted £1.5bn in the UK.

Crowdfunding is a way for businesses or projects to raise money by inviting lots of people to pledge or invest small amounts, usually online. It’s a form of alternative finance, which means that it doesn’t involve traditional banks. Generally businesses advertise their project on a crowdfunding website and potential investors choose whether to pledge money, how much, and the return (if any) they expect.

Why is it of interest to micro-SMEs?

There’s a lot more to crowdfunding than just raising funds. It’s a great way of building a community of followers, engaging with a target audience and establishing long term relationships with those who will support the business into its future.

This makes it very different to the traditional ways of getting finance such as bank loans and overdrafts. These are unlikely to result in feedback from customers about a business or idea and how to improve it. They also seldom generate huge amounts of attention on social media elsewhere. However, these are often part and parcel of crowdfunding.

Different types of crowdfunding

Crowdfunding has three hats depending on the needs of the business or project and the motivations and expectations of the potential investors.
Reward crowdfunding
Reward crowdfunding relies on people’s contributions to projects or causes for often intangible or no return. Depending on the situation, investors might get an acknowledgement in a book or free entry to an event, but their real motivations are usually to support a good cause or to feel bought in to something in their community.
Debt crowdfunding
Debt crowdfunding (also known as crowdlending and peer to peer (P2P) lending) is the most akin to getting finance for a business or project through traditional means. Investors generally expect a financial return for contributing money.


 
Equity crowdfunding
Equity crowdfunding  (also known as crowdinvesting) means that people get shares or a stake in the business or project in return for their monetary investment. As with any equity investment, when things go well the value of their investment goes up but it can drop too. Investors are usually experienced funders and expect their returns at the end of the project. 

How big is the UK crowdfunding market?

Crowdfunding is in the news a lot at the moment. But making the headlines doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone’s doing it.

According to The Crowdfunding Centre, since the beginning of 2014 businesses have been raising £1,700 per hour1 through crowdfunding. Indeed, the alternative finance market as a whole is growing at an astonishing rate in the UK, with it now predicted to be worth over £1.5bn2.

Some businesses are basing their entire growth on crowdfunding. Global records of $40m have been raised through US crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The craze is embedded in the UK too, with the Bristol Park and Slide and the Arran Brewery both hitting the headlines this year because of the support they have gathered through crowdfunding.

However, alternative finance, of which crowdfunding is an example, is still a relatively small market compared to traditional bank lending (which totalled some £7bn3 for SMEs in Q3 2013 alone). In fact, only 5,000 UK SMEs raised funding through the alternative finance market between 2011 and 20134. This is merely a drop in the ocean when you think that there are 4.7 million micro-SMEs in the UK as a whole.

How is crowdfunding different to other ways of accessing funds?

Traditionally if a small business wanted money its only option was to report to its bank manager with a business plan and request the funds. Thankfully times have changed and there are now several ways to access capital, of which crowdfunding is one.

Other than bank loans, overdrafts and credit cards, the main sources of finance for smaller businesses in the UK1 are:

  • Trade credit: suppliers allowing their customers to buy now and pay later
  • Asset backed finance: lending that is secured by an asset, which is taken if the loan is not repaid
  • Invoice discounting: a third party buys sales invoices for a fee
  • Angel investment: affluent individuals or groups provide capital in return for debt interest or equity shares
  • Venture capital: funds, guidance and reputation are given to rapid-growth businesses in return for ownership positions or high interest rates (or both)

The major difference between these forms of finance and crowdfunding is the number of individuals or institutions involved. All of the above depend on one or just a few contributors, whereas crowdfunding relies on many small investments from lots of people. This can result in significant amounts of time and effort being spent engaging with investors.

Deciding which type of finance is right for a business is, therefore, far from simple. However, according to the CBI2, 57% of small and medium-sized firms spend less than an hour researching finance providers. The CBI has therefore launched the UK Finance SME Advisory Group, an online tool that helps businesses identify the types of alternative funding that are suitable for their needs.

Advantages and disadvantages of crowdfunding

Crowdfunding can offer a lot for a micro-SME, but it isn’t for everyone.

Before a business dives into the exciting but time consuming world of profiling their project, securing supporters and then implementing their idea, taking time to understand the advantages and disadvantages of crowdfunding up front could save a lot of time and energy down the line.

The following table will help any micro-SME considering crowdfunding to decide if their business, their idea and the timing is right for them to go pursue it as a source of funds.

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Advantages of crowdfunding Disadvantages of crowdfunding
Businesses set a target amount that they want to raise for their project. If this is hit they get every penny. “Crowdfundable projects are visible, finite and understandable. If your project isn’t all three, it’s unlikely to succeed.”  Anne Strachan, Crowdfund UK
Successfully crowdfunded projects can get huge amounts of attention, on social media and elsewhere, which can help them grow beyond what the money raised alone could have done. If the target amount isn’t reached, potential investors get their money back and the business goes away empty handed
Pitching a project or business through crowdfunding can be a valuable form of marketing Failed projects risk damage to the reputation of the business and people who have pledged money to them
Some businesses raise £100,000s in just a few days, giving them almost instant access to funds Such a public display of an idea risks others copying it
As part of the crowdfunding process the business can get feedback about their idea and how to improve it Businesses need the time and money to gear up the community, publish their project and bring in investors before any money is raised
Crowdfunding is great for niche ideas that wouldn’t otherwise have access to a receptive audience or funds A strong, established existing network is vital to the success of a project. Without it, even the best ideas don’t get backing
As a result of the crowdfunding process, a business’s audience becomes its most loyal customers Getting the rewards or returns wrong can mean giving away too much of the business to investors
“A successful crowdfunding campaign can serve as a positive signal for other funders and can help you attract more funding or funding at better terms.” Liam Collins, Nesta “A company that has a limited network, no digital or social media presence, or a very complicated product will find it harder to crowdfund.” Jude Cook, ShareIn

Choosing a crowdfunding platform that's right for you

In order to raise funds through crowdfunding, a business must first find the crowdfunding website (or platform) on which they want to pitch their project. With so many platforms to choose from, this is no easy task.

Factors to consider when you are choosing a platform to help ensure your crowdfunding success are:

  • Type of crowdfunding – not all platforms offer all three types of crowdfunding. For example, Crowdcube only offers equity crowdfunding and Funding Circle focuses on debt crowdfunding.
  • Fees – different platforms have chosen different structures to price their services. These might include arrangement fees, administration fees, legal fees, success fees, transaction fees, commission fees... the list is pretty long so it’s worth costing up a few options.
  • Type of investors – individual, business and institutional investors can all pledge money to a project, but some platforms stick to having one or another type of investor. Registering with an equity crowdfunding platform, for example, enables a business to read the questions posed by existing investors and the answers they have given, providing useful insight into what sorts of projects work on that platform and why.
  • Type of platform – some platforms are purely a landing page that brings businesses and investors together. Others have a more active role.
  • Platform usability – each website offers its own model, layout and pledge process, which attracts certain types of investors. Knowing what’s important to potential investors and which platforms they like will help determine which is most likely to lead to the funding target being reached.
  • Security – will investors feel secure giving money to the website? If friends and family are not comfortable, it’s unlikely the crowd will either.
  • UK v foreign platform – British businesses must use debt and equity crowdfunding platforms that are based in the UK. For reward crowdfunding, any platform worldwide can be invested in by people based in the UK, but really only Indiegogo and Kickstarter are set up for the British market.
  • General v niche site – different platforms focus on different types of project. Indiegogo is a generalist platform, whereas Kickstarter concentrates on creative projects. There are even platforms specifically for mumpreneurs, authors and cancer research projects.

Or some businesses do crowdfunding without using a platform, such as Brewdog. They have raised £7m through three rounds of crowdfunding buying shares in their Aberdeenshire-based brewery.

The risks of crowdfunding and how to manage them

Crowdfunding can be a game changer for micro SMEs wanting to raise money and their profile. With the right strategy and approach, it can successfully launch a new product or idea and even secure the future of a business through the longterm relationships it helps create.

However, as with anything there are risks attached to it. If these are left unmanaged, not only can a business be left without the funds it sought but it could also end up in a worse position than when it set out.

  • Up front investment - Significant investment is required long before a project is launched on a crowdfunding platform. This equates to time and money taken away from other things when there is no guarantee of success. Before committing to using crowdfunding to raise funds, it’s important to understand whether your business can afford it by setting realistic budgets and timelines up front.
  • Be on the look out for fraud - Unfortunately crowdfunding is not immune to fraud. Fake sites are springing up  across the internet, with projects, particularly in the charitable sector, being copied and funds diverted to fraudsters. So it is important that businesses (and investors) check the credibility of the crowdfunding platform they are hoping to use before committing.
  • Protect your intellectual property - Unlike traditional methods of raising finance, where there are a few potential investors to whom a business presents its ideas, crowdfunding involves a lot of people knowing a lot about the business and its idea. It has an unwelcome side effect in that it gives other businesses the opportunity to copy ideas before they’re real inventors have seen it through to fruition.
  • Control who runs the business - Businesses that choose to raise funds through crowdequity sell a share of their company to investors. As part of this ownership, some investors expect to have a say in how the business is run.  This can be of value to teams looking for expert guidance and advice, however it can be shackling if it holds up progress or takes the business in a different direction to that sought by the original owners.

How to manage the risks

Some businesses are thriving as a result of launching successful crowdfunding campaigns because they got the injection of cash they needed as well as a supportive network of people around them.

Yet, as with anything to do with business, there are risks. And as always, awareness of those risks isn’t enough – they need to be managed.

Investment of time and money

As of 7 January 2015, 12% of the projects listed on Kickstarter finished having never received a single pledge. Of the almost 200,000 projects launched since the platform began, more than 116,000 were not fully funded by their deadline. That’s almost 60%.

So it’s easy to see why people put a lot of effort into their crowdfunding campaign up front – they want to be part of the successful 40% and know that putting the legwork in first makes a big difference.

However, the nature of the beast makes it very easy to spend a lot of hours and a lot of money publishing your project, raising its profile and engaging with your audience, without keeping track of whether the money you’ll raise will cover those costs and the future spend for which you’re raising the money in the first place.

Everyone knows that to make crowdfunding work for your business you’ll have to research the different types of crowdfunding, produce business and marketing plans, secure 30% of the funding before you’ve started, manage a multitude of relationships and much, much more.

All these vital actions take time – time to think, plan, action, manage and adjust. With only so much headspace, it’s easy to become disconnected with what’s going on in your business right now, resulting in you missing opportunities or, worse still, making costly mistakes.

Putting some money into delivering your crowdfunding campaign can be a worthwhile investment. Producing a powerful video that stands out from all the others, for example, can make a big difference to whether you reach your funding target or go away with nothing. Paying an agency to improve the quality and scope of your digital marketing campaigns may also be sensible. In fact, there are advisors for pretty much every aspect of crowdfunding who are willing to relieve you of a bob or two to ensure you deliver a ‘successful’ crowdfunding campaign.

But how do you know when you’re spending more than you’re ever going to get back through the campaign?

  • Keep a tally

Write down how much time and how much money you’re spending on your campaign. Total it up every week or month and compare the overall figures with how much you’re spending on other aspects of your business, as well as what you intend to spend on the project for which you’re raising the funds. If the figures don’t tally, find out why and ask yourself how or whether to continue.

  • Don’t be Jack of all trades

Spreading yourself too thinly by trying to do everything could result in you under-achieving on key objectives. You’ll likely lose sight of the priorities and waste time on activities that won’t make the biggest difference to the success of the campaign. So don’t be a Jack of all trades. Identify your specialisms and exceed at delivering on them, and get help from those with the right skills for the other bits.

  • Seek counsel

Learning from the experiences of others is invaluable in business, and that includes when you’re launching a successful crowdfunding campaign. So don’t be afraid to get in touch with those who have managed to get it spot on and ask for their hints and tips on where to focus your effort and when.

  • Know where the stop button is

Raising money through crowdfunding is like jumping on the world’s highest rollercoaster, learning how to strap yourself in whilst upside down and then keeping the attention of 1,000s of people sitting around you. It’s a challenge and a thrill and the reward at the end makes the challenges worth it. But there may come a point when you decide it’s time to get off. Hitting the stop button takes a lot of guts. But knowing when you’ve reached that point and acknowledging that crowdfunding isn’t for you is fundamental in saving your efforts for something that will deliver the results that you seek.

Fraud

Fraud, whatever it’s guise, is a valid potential threat when you’re doing business online. But it’s a hidden and rapidly changing risk that makes it incredibly difficult to manage.

The good news is that the inherent nature of crowdfunding means that fraud is difficult – individuals publicly question things they don’t trust, resulting in more people challenging something fraudulent and it being quickly removed from the platform. Indeed, one fraudster would have to convince the many of the crowd that they are legitimate – a tall order if there are thousands of them.

In May 2014, BBC One’s Fake Britain reported on a fraudulent reward crowdfunding campaign involving a dummy website. The fundraiser posted their project and invited investors to pledge. Regrettably, instead of investors pledging to the legitimate campaign, they were redirected to a fake website where their money was taken, leaving the fundraiser with nothing.

On the side of the investors, there have been instances where lenders have committed to funding projects, but withdrawn or cancelled their transactions before any money is transferred. Whether or not this constitutes fraud is questionable but whatever label you give it, it can leave people, businesses or communities with unfunded projects despite them hitting their funding targets.

And finally, a grey area when it comes to crowdfunding fraud, is the problem of severely delayed or unfulfilled production or distribution. This is most common in reward crowdfunding, where borrowers haven’t thought through how they are going to produce and ship the pre-sold product they’re seeking funds for. This could be intentional, leaving investors waiting much longer than they expected or receiving nothing at all.

Intellectual property

Your intellectual property (IP) is something unique that you have physically created. Not protecting your ideas could result in your campaign, or even your business, failing. This is because the nature of crowdfunding makes your ideas very public to a lot of people early on. This exposes you to the risk of someone stealing your idea, design, technology or process before you’ve had a chance to sell it yourself.

Philip Brown is Senior Associate Solicitor at Napthens law firm, where he specialises in IP. He has advised several businesses on how to protect their IP when crowdfunding.

“There’s always a danger of giving away your secrets when you’re raising capital,” says Philip, because neither lenders nor investors will part with their money until they have enough information to decide that the project or business is going to be a success. “ But crowdfunding magnifies the risk because of the number of people involved,” he continues.

So it’s crucial to be wary of others stealing your idea – they might publish their own crowdfunding project using your IP or they might use it elsewhere for financial gain. The public nature of crowdfunding, and the vested interest of the platform to maintain its integrity and reputation, should eke out copy projects before people start investing (or indeed before they’re made public) but it’s a risk that you need to be aware of.

“If you have come up with an answer to a problem, broadcasting the problem could result in someone else coming up with a different answer to solving it. There’s nothing you can do about that,” says Philip. However, there are several things you can do to make sure that the credit for something remains with it’s originator.

“One of the key ways to reduce the risk of others stealing your IP is to say what it is your idea does, rather than how it does it,” says Philip.

So when you’re producing your crowdfunding video or writing about the project or business for which you’re raising funds, steer away from giving too much about how your idea works. Instead, focus on the difference it makes and the needs in the market that it satisfies. This is where making your business and your business case stand out really matters, because it takes some of the focus away from how your idea works and puts it on what it achieves instead.

Another way of protecting your IP is to register it. Registering things such as trademarks, patents, copyrights or design rights are all ways of protecting your ideas – but the registration process can be long, complicated and costly. Weighing up the pros and cons of registering your idea against managing how you share information about it is an important step – because you might find that registering it simply isn’t worth it.

If you do choose to protect your idea, be sure you have enough money to act on it should someone steal it. “It’ can be expensive to claim damages for patent infringement,” says Philip - litigation can be lengthy and you’re not guaranteed to win. “It’s all well and good having protection, but if you can’t afford to enforce it then it’s value is greatly reduced,” he says.

The timing of when you protect your idea is also important – you can’t get patent protection on something that is already in the public domain. “

"Start the process of protecting your IP before you launch your crowdfunding campaign,” says Philip, “that way you don’t prejudice any protection should you choose to get in later on.” Alternatively, don’t give away any details about what you’re seeking protection on during your crowdfunding campaign, and then protect your idea after your project is funded.

Ownership

Equity crowdfunding involves selling a share of your business to the crowd, some of whom could be professional investors. It’s a sound alternative to debt crowdfunding (P2P business lending) if you already have a lot of other debt, or if you don’t make a big profit (although this can make it a less attractive investment for the crowd).

As part of this, you relinquish some control of your business – you, as the business owner, decide how much – 10%, 20%, 30%? It’s a figure that requires a lot of thought because of how it’s related to the value of your business and how it affects how much of the business you can own in the future.

How you value your business has far reaching implications in equity crowdfunding, because there is an intrinsic relationship between how much money you want to raise, how much of the business you are willing to sell and what you think it is worth.

Frank Webster is Senior Investment Associate at Seedrs, the equity crowdfunding platform. “How much money you are seeking to raise and the equity you are prepared to offer decides the value you are placing on your business,” says Frank, “so it may help to get advice from professional advisors or perhaps anchor investors.”

As he explains, “the valuation of a company at the time of any fundraising round is calculated using the amount of investment sought, and the amount of equity being offered in return for that investment. If you're looking to raise £100,000 for 10% of your company, that's a pre-money valuation of £900,000, and post-money valuation of £1,000,000 (i.e. the value of the shares plus the cash invested).”

On some equity crowdfunding platforms, you can overfund, which means that you raise more money than you sought. In this instance, “the pre-money valuation of your business remains constant, but the post-money valuation continues to rise (as more cash is invested and further shares are issued),” says Frank. “Using the example above, if you were to get to 200% (i.e. raise £200,000), this does not mean you have sold 20% of your business, as the pre-money valuation remains the same, but the post-money valuation moves up (in this example, to £1,100,000). The calculation is (200,000 / 1,100,000) x 100 = 18.18%.”

So getting the valuation right is a factor in making sure you retain the right level of control in the business. It also impacts how attractive your business is as an investment opportunity – placing too high a valuation on it puts investors off.

The main risk of selling a higher percentage of your business through equity crowdfunding is that you give too much muscle power to the crowd, potentially making it more difficult for you to influence key decisions made in the future.

This may have been part of your strategy – you have chosen your investors specifically because you want them to be permanently involved in your business as you know they give sound business advice and are more experienced than you are. But be careful that bringing a relatively large crowd along for the journey to achieve your business’s goals may hold up progress along the way, or even take the business in a completely different direction.

Another thing to keep in mind is how you will make sure you keep aside enough equity in the business to give to employees down the line. Or even to other, more sophisticated investors who can add particular value to your business in the future.

Lastly, consider ‘dilution’. “If a business raises a later round of finance (normally at a higher valuation), this means that new shares are issued to new investors,” says Frank. “There is therefore a larger number of shares making up the total share capital in the company, so each individual share is proportionally worth a slightly lower percentage than before the round.”

If mismanaged, the knock on effect of selling various stakes in a business over time could result in the value of the original business owner’s share of their business going down.

However, as Frank explains, if you’re running a successful business and are mindful of the risks of dilution, the overall value of the company will be going up: “So whilst the percentage of the company owned by its founder and early investors may have gone down, the value of the whole has gone up - and the original ownership stake is thus worth more,” concludes Frank.

5 signs you’re not ready for crowdfunding

Many of us have perhaps heard about crowdfunding for business. But the start-ups and micro-SMEs that are considering using it to raise funds need to fully understand it before diving in. That way it is more likely to reap the rewards you’re after.

Crowdfunding is taking off in the UK for a variety of reasons, the most popular being lack of available funding from banks. So with the rise of social media it makes sense that businesses are turning to their networks to raise money instead.

However, crowdfunding isn’t something you can commit to with the bare minimum of thought and preparation. There are a multitude of signs that you may not be ready to jump on the crowdfunding bandwagon. Here are a few to get you started.

Instead of researching the many other sources of finance that are available to small businesses in the UK, you’ve decided to raise money through crowdfunding because you think that’s what everyone does these days.

The reality is that there are lots of options for accessing funds, of which crowdfunding is one. Ruling these out before seriously considering them could result in you spending more time and money on getting the money than you needed to.

When quizzed, the only difference that you can remember between reward, debt and equity crowdfunding is that one of them usually involves giving others a stake in your business (although you’re not sure which one).

Understanding what sorts of project or business suit each type of crowdfunding will help make sure you pick the one that has the best chance of raising the funds you need.

You think that crowdfunding is a way of increasing the size of your network rather than something that relies on having a strong one in the first place.

Building up a solid group of supporters before you start will help persuade others to join in once you launch your campaign. You can measure your influence and how it’s improving using the Klout score.

You’ve chosen a crowdfunding platform that you like the look and feel of, but you haven’t checked what your friends, relatives and potential customers think about it.

Picking a platform that your target audience will like is much more important than what you like. You can read each platform’s FAQs and even call them up for a chat to get a better feel for whether they’re right for you.

The time you’re spending on your crowdfunding campaign is having an adverse effect on the day-to-day running of your business.

If you can’t keep your business going while you run your crowdfunding campaign, you are not going to be able to sustain the momentum once you’ve raised the funds. This is just as important as the campaign itself as it keeps your customers and the market engaged.

Case Study: How to launch a record breaking equity crowdfunding round

The British equity crowdfunding market is used to record breakers. It’s such a rapidly growing type of alternative finance (it was the fastest growing form of crowdfunding between 2012 to 20141) that it epitomises why the word ‘alternative’ needs to be removed from the title.

Last month JustPark broke the UK record for the biggest technology equity crowdfunding round. The app and website raised £3.7million in just 34 days, £2.7million more than its target. JustPark used equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube to raise the funds.

What were the magic ingredients that made JustPark’s campaign a record breaker?

Luke Lang, Crowdcube co-founder and CMO, likens it to “the tastiest cocktail you’ve ever had.”

“JustPark executed their crowdfunding campaign perfectly. Their success comes from a recipe of lots of different factors that came together at just the right time,” explains Luke.

“There were already backed by BMW i Ventures and Index Ventures,” he continues, “which gave the crowd confidence in their credibility. They have a great team who had learnt from the early mistakes of running a business and they had already gained momentum by doing a private listing before going public. Their members respected that and responded well to it.”

Anthony Eskinazi, founder of JustPark, agrees. “The main thought on everyone's mind was that this campaign should be about giving our users, without whom JustPark wouldn't exist, the chance to share in the business' future success,” says Anthony. “That's why we gave JustPark users a priority period of 48 hours during which they could invest before anyone else in the UK."

So experience and putting their users at the heart of their campaign were critical to JustPark’s crowdfunding success. But what about the relationship between them and their chosen platform?

Unsurprisingly, the teams at JustPark and Crowdcube established a strong bond. Anthony and his board thought hard about which platform to use for the raise. They got it spot on, because Crowdcube thoroughly enjoyed the experience too. “We worked together as a team to make sure that we maximised any PR, social media, email and above the line opportunities available,” Luke says. “They’re great people to do business with.”

Messaging was also key to why JustPark’s funding target could have carried on beyond the £3.7million mark, a figure it only stopped at because of EU regulations.

“To create a strong campaign,” says Luke, “you need to generate the right narrative behind the business. This includes demonstrating your achievements so far, what distinguishes you from the rest of your market as well as the other campaigns on the crowdfunding site.”

That advice wasn’t lost on Anthony and his team. “Our board worked meticulously to make sure that the valuation and message around the crowdfunding was right,” he says.

Finally, JustPark understood the importance of knowing what type of investors it wanted to involve in its business. They chose to work with the UK’s number one equity investor of 20142 because of the size and calibre of its investors - the largest single investment for JustPark was £500,000. This says a lot about the people putting their money into the business through Crowdcube.

In summary then, aspiring entrepreneurs looking to follow in Anthony’s footsteps can launch the next record breaking crowdfunding round with these vital ingredients:

  • put your users first
  • build a great relationship with your platform
  • get your messaging right
  • choose the right investors

Dowload our guide:
Everything micro-SMEs need to know about crowdfunding

View our full Crowdfunding guide or browse through the content below to learn more.

  • Everything small business owners need to know about crowdfunding
  • What is crowdfunding?
  • Size of the crowdfunding market
  • How is crowdfunding different to other ways of accessing funds?
  • Advantages and disadvantages of crowdfunding
  • What are crowdfunding platforms?
  • What are the risks of crowdfunding?
  • 5 signs you're not ready for crowdfunding (you are here)
  • How to make crowdfunding work for your business
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