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T H E BI G STORY: C ROW D F U N D I N G
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hen the job ad search engine Adzuna successfully raised £2.1m through crowdfunding platform Crowdcube in 2015, it might have been the beginning of a new trend in the way that companies in the recruitment sector obtain investment. But despite the general growth of crowdfunding, whereby companies ask the public to invest in their business in return for equity, the approach has never taken off in recruitment. This is despite the publicity generated by companies such as craft beer company BrewDog, which launched crowdfunding in the UK as far back as 2009 and has so far raised more than £73m from more than 121,000 investors. “Recruitment isn’t always sexy,” says Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, who says that crowdfunding typically lends itself to tangible or cool products, food and drink brands, social movements or industry disruptors. However, there is evidence that crowdfunding is, albeit belatedly, gaining traction in the recruitment sector. Although not on BrewDog’s scale, and without the type of incentives that its investors famously receive, such as beer on their birthday and access to new brews, in August talent pipeline automation company Candidate.ID met its target to raise £500k through crowdfunding platform Crowdcube from UK and US investors, achieving it in a rapid four weeks. In the same month, online crowdsourced talent platform AnyGood? completed its £375k crowdfund raise through Seedrs, attracting investments of between £12 and £100k from 354 individual investors.
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12/09/2019 10:44