Crowdfunding, The UK Story

Crowdfunding as a way for businesses to raise finance is growing faster than anyone could have predicted 5 years ago. What makes the story of crowdfunding more interesting is that the UK really is leading the way in it’s adoption of crowdfunding as a method of commercial funding.

I write a lot about crowdfunding, how it is used, what it is all about and the types of funding available. For this post I am looking at ‘reward’ based crowdfunding, the easiest way to give an example of this is to say click here, have a browse of Kickstarter and see what you make of it.

Kickstarter is about ‘projects’, that means the funding of something with a start, end and specific objective. Funding given is not rewarded financially but by the giving of a non-financial ‘reward’. Have a look at Kickstarter and it will make sense.

The UK Crowdfunding Numbers

This is the first 3 months of 2014;

The UK saw 608 projects fully funded, a growth of 317%! Considering that there were 1676 projects outside of the US, the UK accounted for 36%!

The Crowd Data Centre made this comment about UK crowdfunding growth;

Growth is very high in the UK…As well as being somewhat earlier in the uptake cycle this probably includes a seasonal element (given that the tax year starts 6th April in the UK). Although an increasingly high profile because of parliamentary activities (most notable the Westminster Crowdfunding Forum) and press coverage may also be a significant factor in this high growth.

The bottom line here is that growth in the UK is impressive and crowdfunding is something that businesses need to be aware of, not necessarily fully understand but be aware is a very real funding option for them.

If you are still doubting the things then maybe these stats will convince you;

• A new crowdfunding project is created every 3 minutes, that is 500 every day
• Globally, crowdfunding is doubling in size every 60 days
• In March, the UK committed more pledges to crowdfunding projects than in January and February combined
• There are between 18,000 and 22,000 crowdfunding projects being funded at any one time

Want More Info?

If you want any more information on project based crowdfunding then give Lime Consultancy a call on 01293 541333 or use the website to make contact. Any comments are welcomed, please add them above.

By Dave Farmer