Seedrs is about opening startup investing to a wider group of people than can currently access it—going beyond traditional angels and reaching the “mass affluent”. We think that sensible grown-ups should be able to allocate a reasonable proportion of their capital to businesses they select and get the benefits of access to the possibly fantastic returns, excitement, portfolio diversity and tax reliefs that investing in startups provides.

But equally, we offer angel investors—the high-net-worth individuals who currently invest in startups—a new and useful tool for making their investments.  Some of the advantages for traditional angels in using Seedrs include:

1. We provide access to 100% seed-stage startups. All of the startups you’ll find on Seedrs are genuine seed-stage businesses. They’re pre-revenue, which means they’re riskier than later-stage businesses, but it also means that the rewards when they succeed are greater (sometimes incredibly so). And you get the chance to be part of their journey from the very beginning—no one forgets their first backers.

2. You can still get involved with startups. For those angels who find a lot of value in mentoring and sharing your expertise with startups, we help you do that. You can interact with, ask questions of and offer your time to entrepreneurs through the platform.

3. You can diversify your startup portfolio with smaller investments across different sectors.  We offer the chance for angels to invest smaller amounts of capital into a broader selection of startups, diversifying your regions, sectors and amounts across their startup portfolio so you can reap the rewards from a diverse portfolio.

4. Streamlined legal and paperwork process allows you to be more passive if you like. If you are looking to diversify your investments, but you don’t have the time to dedicate to multiple startups, we make it possible by taking the legal and admin paperwork off your hands. So, you can choose to be as active or passive with your investments as you like.

5. Concentration of Seed EIS and EIS eligible companies. When you make an investment, you will know whether a company is SEIS or EIS eligible; and then we help our entrepreneurs apply for formal approval of the relief. All this makes it easy for you to claim the incredible tax incentives association with the schemes (SEIS can give you up to 78% of your investment back).

If you’re interested in learning more about what it means to be an angel, there’s a great new initiative by the British Business Angels Association (BBAA) called “Be an Angel” that looks to educate and support angels in their pursuits. Their website is a great resource for those interested in becoming an angel, list of questions to ask entrepreneurs, joining angel syndicates, and common legal terms.

We look forward to working with angels investing through Seedrs, and if you have any questions about how best to use Seedrs to expand your angel investing activities, please reach out to us anytime.