Seedrs ties up with Vevolution to boost early-stage investment in alt proteins

The tie-up means that plant and cell-based startups will have access to Vevolution’s network of investors while tapping Seedrs’ investment community for equity crowdfunding to allow them to build a more diverse investor base.

Seedrs is hopeful that its new partnership with plant-based investment marketplace Vevolution will help boost early-stage investment in plant and cell-based firms.

The tie-up means that plant and cell-based startups will have access to Vevolution’s network of investors while tapping Seedrs’ investment community for equity crowdfunding to allow them to build a more diverse investor base.

Scott Simpkin, business development manager, Seedrs, told Future Food Finance how he envisaged the partnership would work.

He said: “During a crowdfund, the money doesn’t always come all from the platform. 

“A lot of the time money comes from numerous different places, more often than not VCs or institutions initially and then the crowd would top up the round.

“So the way this works is Vevolution helps us with the first bit, which is very hard through the crowd. 

“Our investors are typically people who are not professionals and they are doing it with a little bit of spare money in their spare time, therefore participating in the end of the round when they know who has invested.

“We struggle to get people in at the beginning. Vevolution are the professionals and then the crowd follow.”

In 2021, Vevolution facilitated partial or full funding in 25 startups including MeliBio, Evo Foods, Jellatech, Opalia, and more.

Simpkin says Seedrs has undertaken 150 raises for food and beverage firms since 2020, with 74 being vegan food businesses.

Seedrs has to date run campaigns for vegan players such as Allplants (£4.5m), The Vegan Kind (£600k) THIS (£4.4m).

Simpkin adds that in recent months of 2022 there has been a drop off of vegan businesses crowdfunding, partly due to supply chain issues.

But he says 2020 and 2021 have been the strongest years yet for alternative protein firms using Seedrs.

Simpkin adds: “We tend to see more vegan food businesses that are FMCG products that people understand. They tend to work better for crowdfunding because businesses that work really well for crowdfunding are ones that people can understand.”

Simpkin says more complicated, scientific-based firms are harder to crowdfund, due to a lack of consumer understanding.

“What I am hoping out of this partnership is that Vevolution fund a lot more of those businesses than we do,” he says, which will give Seedrs investors the confidence to join the raise.

Erik Amundson, managing director and co-founder of Vevolution added: "It's the perfect partnership. Often companies need the lead investment from Vevolution to get a crowdfunding campaign off the ground.

"We are dedicated to supporting the global movement for plant-powered positive change in the world. To do this we need to connect these exciting startups with smart money.

"By working in partnership with Seedrs we are broadening the access to investors from our network of angel investors and Seedrs community of retail investors that believe in the movement. "