Seedrs, winner of the startup competition at London Web Summit in March, is pleased to announce that it has now completed the second of two tranches of a £1 million fundraising round and today opens for business with entrepreneurs seeking investment for their startups.

Following completion of an investment, Seedrs holds and manages the shares on the investors’ behalf, which helps protect investors’ interests and minimise the administrative burden for the startups.    

The investment round included DFJ Esprit, Digital Prophets (backed by Luke Johnson and managed by the investors behind 1seed) and a number of angel investors from leading technical and financial backgrounds.In connection with the round, two leading angels join as board observers: Mark Hunter, co-founder and CEO of Axon Group plc, which floated on the LSE in 1999 and was sold to HCL Technologies for £440 million in 2008; and Kayar Raghavan, a former Citi executive and senior advisor to Wipro Technologies. 

Seedrs now formally opens its doors for business by inviting entrepreneurs to list their startup as one of the first group of new businesses seeking investment capital through the platform. Seedrs will open to the investors who will supply that capital later this summer. Any entrepreneur who would like to be invited to be one of the first to list their startup on Seedrs, and anyone interested in becoming an investor can sign up at www.seedrs.com.

Jeff Lynn, cofounder and CEO of Seedrs said, “It is the culmination of a lot of hard work to build a service we are proud of and that we are confident will transform the ability of great new businesses to get off the ground in the UK, backed by enthusiastic investors keen to participate in their potential success.” Seedrs Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.