In mid-November, CrowdX held its inaugural webinar, launching the company and introducing both prospective investors and issuers to a route to equity funding, liquidity and potentially IPO, ensuring today’s fast growth, privately held companies can become the success stories of tomorrow.
Amidst a focus on the Unicorn mindset where an almost cult-like obsession has formed over taking a start-up to a one billion plus valuation in the shortest time frame possible, this version of success risks casing damage to the wider funding ecosystem. And for every runaway success, there are hundreds – if not thousands – of privately held companies that have the potential, but don’t know how to find the next page in their corporate growth story. By bringing together panels of specialist advisers under a single umbrella, CrowdX is taking a critical step in helping founders realise their ambitions, empowering growth in a way that is properly managed and in step with their own ambition. Too many businesses either fail to find growth routes or get sold too early in trade sales, yet the panellists in the session were unanimous in their agreement that it doesn’t have to be this way.
As Claire Noyce, founding partner and CEO of Hybridan noted, the fundraising process in general has arguably seen little evolution over the years. Technology is however now being used increasingly to join the dots, make the process more democratic and ultimately more accessible to all. With that in mind, a cohesive platform for private companies like CrowdX offers a valuable transition process, which would allow them to progress their corporate journey and prepare for the next step.
Simon Charles, a Joint Senior Partner at Marriott Harrison, felt that by having the central point of access for growth companies of various sizes made for a hugely valuable resource. Participants could tap into a trusted knowledge pool that would provide significant benefits when it came to tackling the recurring questions of “who do you ring; where do you go; and who can you trust”. Again, the key belief here is that if more companies can grow at the pace they want, given the rich capital market infrastructure that exists in London, the pool of candidates looking for full public listings in the future can only grow.
As it stands, the exit process for founders is all too often an extremely challenging one. The CrowdX structure gives them another route to success here, with the ability to do so on their terms. Click below to watch the full webinar.
