23/08/2022 Tokeportal’s own content

Author: Álmos Mátravölgyi

A year ago news broke that one of the largest self-crowdfunding campaigns in our region has raised over 1 million euros and has successfully closed on Seedblink. This campaign was part of a larger Series A round where the platform made it available for their own crowd to participate. Seedblink, which focuses specifically on tech startups and works with a number of Romanian venture capital fund managers, combined the crowd with institutional capital to expand internationally. More than 30 potential acquisition targets were screened before choosing Symbid.

With this acquisition Seedblink is one step closer to achieving its mission to consolidate and build the capital investment infrastructure for European technology companies at all stages of their business. With Symbid’s addition the platforms have contributed with over 110 million euros investments in 250 startups with a combined network of 62,000 individual investors.

Symbid was founded in 2011 by a team of Dutch entrepreneurs as one of the first investment crowdfunding platforms in the world and has since built a community of 50,000 investors in startups mainly from the Benelux. The acquisition significantly expands SeedBlink’s investor pool by increasing the high-net-worth individuals’ (HNWI) community and includes a professional funding partner network Symbid is already connected with – such as banks, venture capital funds and angel investors.

Robin Slakhorst the co-founder of Symbid stated that “We believe Europe needs more tech innovation to become more competitive on the global stage. Bold founders need to be financed with sufficient capital to fuel those ambitions, and individuals need professional and structured access to these venture opportunities. The combined forces will help us lead the entrepreneurial ecosystem, by offering a unique digital financing infrastructure, a secondary market and a fast network of professional investors co-investing with individuals throughout Europe.”

Going forward Symbid will lead the combined company’s investment activities in the Benelux region where it has traditionally been strong and which SeedBlink has also prioritised in its expansion plans. A spokesperson for Seedblink said that they are continuing to look for growth opportunities across Europe and are currently focusing on France and the Czech Republic as potential expansion targets. Several new offices are planned to open including one in France, with further acquisitions expected in 2023.

The positive outlook is reinforced by the fact that in less than 3 years, investors have already recorded liquidity events with returns ranging from 2.5 to 4.75 times their investments, through the recently launched secondary market.