Assetz Capital looks to raise £1m with help of future fund
Assetz Capital is looking to utilise the government’s future fund to support its latest funding round, which will double its fundraising target to £1m.
The future fund, which opened for applications last month, offers convertible loans ranging from £125,000 to £5m from the government, subject to at least equal match funding from private investors.
Firms must have previously raised at least £250,000 in equity investment from third-party investors in the past five years.
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Assetz is launching its fourth funding round on equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs, which it says will be a pre-cursor to its application to the future fund.
The platform has set a minimum target to raise £500,000 from private investors, which it intends to be match funded by the government’s future fund investment, taking the total investment to £1m.
“We will however permit overfunding but the window of opportunity for application to the future fund is only short and hence why we have set a modest Seedrs target,” Assetz said in an email to investors. “Any additional funding would likely be accepted but would not be match funded by the government once that application is submitted.”
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Assetz said that it will use the proceeds of the funding round for the legal and structuring work needed to deliver the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) and to provide some skin in the game for lending required by CBILS, and also to grow the team and for working capital.
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“We had another year of great business growth and success in 2019, leading up to the current and unfortunate pandemic,” said Stuart Law (pictured), chief executive of Assetz Capital, in the email.
“This funding round is expected to further strengthen our position in the market and to help deliver much needed capital to UK businesses.”
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Assetz said the latest campaign is now going live and could close at any point once the £500,000 funding level is met.
The platform added if it does not achieve approval for the future fund it will still offer this campaign.
This follows the lender completing its third Seedrs equity funding round in April.