Innovation Birmingham announces partnership with Crowdcube

Established in 2011, Crowdcube is the leading global investment crowdfunding platform, enabling people to invest alongside professional investors in start-up, early stage and growth businesses. With nearly 300,000 registered investors on its site, Crowdcube has successfully funded over £185 million to date. This will be Crowdcube’s first strategic partnership outside London.

This announcement follows the completion of Innovation Birmingham’s landmark 42,149 sq ft iCentrum building and the launch of the Serendip Smart City Incubator; a programme which co-locates promising start-ups with commercial partners in one of four ‘quarters’: Digital Health, Intelligent Mobility, Internet of Things and Eagle Labs. Start-ups on the programme will benefit from reduced commission rates when raising money through Crowdcube.

Cliff Dennett, Head of Business Development at Innovation Birmingham, said: “This deal with Crowdcube is a significant benefit to the region’s entrepreneurs who sometimes struggle to raise investment and will be a vital next step in growing investment capacity in the region. We are delighted to be working with the Crowdcube and to be adding an important additional service to our already extensive start-up support activities.

“This partnership will also be of great benefit to Innovation Birmingham’s Serendip Smart City Incubator programme, which enables start-ups to work directly with large brands to accelerate their routes to market. As well as helping start-ups bring their products to market faster, we can now help them secure investment funding more cheaply, which will hopefully increase the volume of investment deals done in the region.”

By working closely together, Innovation Birmingham and Crowdcube will grow investment opportunities for businesses based at the Campus and will encourage successful fundraising for the entrepreneurs in the region.

Jonathan Keeling, Head of Partnerships at Crowdcube, said: “As the second largest city in the country and one of the youngest populations in Europe, Birmingham represents a fantastic opportunity. Crowdcube’s partnership with Innovation Birmingham is a fantastic opportunity for us support the growth of the city’s next generation of entrepreneurs.

“With over £10 million having already been raised for businesses in the North and a growing number of businesses seeking to raise between £60,000 – £3 million in the pipeline, we are excited to build on that success through our partnership with Innovation Birmingham.”

The Serendip Smart City Incubator currently has over 20 businesses on the programme including city infrastructure technology firm, Conigital; disruptive letting technology agent, brightLET and indoor positioning solution provider, Proxicon.

For more information on Innovation Birmingham or to apply to Serendip, please visit: www.innovationbham.com/serendip

For additional information on Crowdcube, visit: www.crowdcube.com