FreeAgent, the multi-award winning cloud accounting provider, has raised more than £1m from its first crowdfunding drive aimed at “Democratising Accounting” for UK micro-businesses and freelancers.
The Edinburgh-based company has closed its round with equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs after breaking the £1m target with the backing of 700 investors. It now aims to use the investment to accelerate product development and growth, and to provide its transformative cloud accounting system to as many of the UK’s five million micro-businesses as possible so that they can manage their books more effectively.
Ed Molyneux, CEO and co-founder of FreeAgent, said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to have surpassed our target and to have become one of a select group of UK businesses to have raised more than £1m through crowdfunding. We chose this route because we wanted to make it easy for small business owners to invest in our business, and the fact that many of our new shareholders are customers who use and love FreeAgent really reinforces our decision.
Ed Molyneux, CEO and co-founder of FreeAgent
“FreeAgent already empowers many thousands of people to take control of their business finances and to view accounting as an integral, straightforward part of their working life, rather than something to be feared. We’re now looking forward to introducing even more people to our software and accelerating our product development so that we can continue to be the best accounting solution for micro-businesses, freelancers and their accountants.”
FreeAgent’s customers regularly describe how the product has transformed the relationship they have with their business finances and the company consistently achieves world-class customer satisfaction ratings (its most recent Net Promoter Score was 74, on a par with global brands such as Apple).
Since its launch in 2007, FreeAgent has grown into an established, highly-regarded technology innovator, with customers in 100 countries and more than 75 members of staff. For the past two years the company has been ranked in the top 20 of the Deloitte Fast 50 – the annual rundown of the UK’s fastest-growing technology companies – as well as being named as “One to Watch” in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100.