Crowdcube co-founder one of Britain’s 500 Most Influential People
Darren Westlake, the co-founder of the world’s first and most successful equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, has been named by Debrett’s as one of Britain’s 500 Most Influential People.
Published in The Sunday Times, the Debrett’s 500 2015 List recognises the most influential and inspiring people living and working in Britain today. It acknowledges power, talent, hard work, brilliance, originality, persistence, courage and, occasionally, luck: in short, achievement.
Westlake was one of 20 entrepreneurs in the study alongside Innocent Drinks Co-founder Richard Reed, Lastminute.com co-founder Brent Hoberman and Supergroup co-founder Julian Dunkerton. Other influential people in the list include: Sir Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web; Nicola Mendelsohn, head of EMEA operations at Facebook; Sir James Dyson, inventor of the dual cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner and the retired footballer David Beckham.
Since Westlake and co-founder Luke Lang launched Crowdcube in 2011, the platform has raised just under £55 million for 188 businesses across the UK. This means it has raised £1569 every second over the last four years.
Speaking about the accolade, Darren Westlake, co-founder of Crowdcube said: “This is a real honour. We are proud to have challenged the traditional finance sector and created a vibrant new market for entrepreneurs seeking finance and investors. Britain has led the world in financial services for centuries and it is now the turn of ambitious young and innovative businesses, like Crowdcube, to continue this tradition.”
Other key highlights for Crowdcube since it has launched include:
• World’s first crowdfunded mini-bond – launched in June 2014, the Crowdcube Mini-Bond takes a lot of the pain out of what was previously a time-consuming, expensive way to acquire capital. Now established brands can bring their fundraising to market much faster. The Mexican fast-food chain, Chilango was the first to use the service, launching its Burrito Bond and securing £2m from its customers and Crowdcube investors. Other successful mini-bond campaigns followed from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage and Tim Smit’s Eden Project; both reaching their targets in record times – less than 36 hours and five hours respectively.
• £million deals – Several successful crowdfunds secured significant sums from the crowd including the latest Stelios start-up, easyProperty, which raised £1.4m; Caterham F1 which had 6,467 fans rallying to its cause to the tune of £2.3m; LOVESPACE, the latest venture from Brett Akker, co-founder of Streetcar, with its £1.5m raise and Kevin McCloud’s Hab Housing, which received £1.95 million investment from 649 people.
• Fastest equity crowdfunding raise - In July Crowdcube smashed the world record for the fastest equity crowdfunding raise by securing £1.2m in only 16 minutes for its own third round of investment. This was 12 times faster than the previous record and followed the announcement of a £3.8m investment in the business from venture capital firm Balderton Capital.
