FreeAgent launches £1m crowdfunding drive to “Democratise Accounting”

Scottish cloud accounting provider FreeAgent has launched a £1 million crowdfunding drive to accelerate its vision of “Democratising Accounting” for UK micro-businesses and freelancers.

The Edinburgh-based company has opened its first ever crowdfunding round with equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

The firm, which was launched in 2007, says it is aiming to accelerate product development and growth, and provide its transformative cloud accounting system to as many of the UK’s five million micro-businesses as possible.

By choosing the crowdfunding route, FreeAgent has opened up investment to its 40,000-strong customer base and also hopes to attract other traditional and non-traditional investors, including small business owners and accountants.

New investors will be able to have a stake in FreeAgent from as little as £10.

The company will use the funds to accelerate development of its continually-evolving product and introduce more micro-businesses and freelancers to FreeAgent, so that they can manage their books more effectively.

Ed Molyneux, CEO and co-founder of FreeAgent, said: “Accounting has long been an unglamorous, under-served backwater of the software industry. But we believe that by focussing specifically on the needs of micro-businesses, we’ve been able to completely reinvent this category.

“FreeAgent is already empowering 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.

“So who better to help us achieve our vision of ‘Democratising Accounting’ than our customers? We chose crowdfunding because we want to make it straightforward for them - as well as other small business owners - to invest in FreeAgent.”

FreeAgent is specifically-designed for micro-businesses (those with fewer than 10 employees) and helps them manage their business admin, giving them real time access to their financial information and, with its unique tax filing capabilities, helping them relax about tax.

FreeAgent has grown to boast customers in 100 countries and a workforce of more than 70 staff and for the past two years the company has been ranked in the top 20 of the Deloitte Fast 50 - the annual run down of the UK’s fastest-growing technology companies - as well as being named as “One to Watch” in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100.

Jeff Lynn, CEO, Seedrs said: “We’re very honoured that FreeAgent has become another well-established and well-respected business to use Seedrs. They see the huge opportunity in raising growth capital alongside inviting customers to share in their success. FreeAgent has built their strong reputation by offering great products and services to their customers, and we’re proud that they chose Seedrs to help them crowdfund properly.”

More information about FreeAgent’s crowdfunding campaign can be found at:

https://www.seedrs.com/startups/freeagent