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investors
Republic Europe is the platform that used to be called Seedrs; it began trading under the new name on 10 July 2024, though the legal company is still Seedrs Limited.
It is a British equity crowdfunding platform, running since July 2012, on which people buy shares in private startups and growth companies from 20 pounds or euros a time. About 3.1bn pounds has been placed into roughly 1,000 to 1,200 companies across some 2,500 fundraisings, from 700,000 registered accounts.
Seedrs pioneered the nominee structure that most UK platforms now use: the shares are registered to a group nominee company, and you hold the full economic interest behind it, including any EIS or SEIS tax relief. You do not vote your own shares and you are not on the company's register.
Seedrs Limited is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under reference 550317, and an Irish company authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland since October 2023 serves European investors. UK investors must certify themselves as an everyday, sophisticated or high net worth investor, renew that every twelve months, and pass a test.
You pay 2.5% when you invest, nothing to hold, and 5% of any profit on exit; secondary market trades cost 2% to each side plus a share of the profit.
The secondary market moved to continuous trading in May 2025 and is the most functional in European equity crowdfunding, though it has liquidated only about 10,000 people in total.
There is no compensation scheme for investment losses, and money comes back only on a sale, a flotation or a secondary trade.
License / Regulation: FCA authorised (UK); CBI-regulated Irish arm | Licence 550317
Seedrs was started in 2009 by Jeff Lynn and Carlos Silva as a business school project at Oxford, and Lynn is still a director. The board today is Pialy Aditya, Jeff Lynn, James Newman, Lee Pettid and Elliott Wiseman, with Peter Field as company secretary. Turnover at the top has been heavy: twenty directors have resigned over the company's life, the managing director appointed to run Republic's European operation in January 2024 resigned in March 2025, and the managing director who wrote the last portfolio report resigned in February 2024. The US parent, Republic, was founded in 2016 and is backed by Morgan Stanley and Valor Equity Partners among others. The UK register now shows no person with significant control.
The most damaging item concerns the platform's own investors. Seedrs had itself been crowdfunded. When Republic bought it in 2021, crowd investors were not offered the option of receiving shares in Republic while larger shareholders were, and small investors waited three years for their full proceeds. One of them said the deal was the exact opposite of Seedrs's own founding principle; the founder answered that he had a legal duty to maximise value for shareholders. Second, the portfolio report was discontinued: the last edition was published on 14 December 2023 covering to the end of 2022, and nothing has followed in the 32 months since. Third, the headline returns have been criticised as paper returns since 2016, when Forbes noted you generally cannot realise them. One independent reviewer scores the platform 6 out of 10 and advises less experienced investors to stay away. Trustpilot is around 4.3 out of 5 across roughly 3,700 reviews, with about 6% at one star; the recurring complaints are illiquidity, dilution, companies going quiet, slow tax certificates and currency conversion. No regulatory action was found.
Six published steps, which the platform calls the Republic Europe standard. Before a pitch launches it verifies the information and claims in it, asking for evidence behind anything material; runs checks against public registers and outside sources; requires founders to be reachable and bans anonymous users; puts professional-grade agreements in place with warranties and, usually, pre-emption rights and consent over new share classes; applies the regulator's requirements on identity checks, separate client accounts and releasing money only after checks finish; and keeps some oversight afterwards. It says only 1% of applicants become live opportunities. The limits matter more: it verifies claims, it does not judge the business, and forecasts come from the founders. One independent reviewer calls the campaign material more marketing pitch than serious financial projection.
You pay 2.5% of whatever you invest, with a minimum of 5 pounds or euros and a maximum of 250. There is no holding fee for the life of the investment. On exit you pay 5% of your profit, applied whether the money comes from a sale or from a secondary trade, and nothing if the shares sell at a loss. Secondary trades also carry a transaction fee of 2% charged to each of buyer and seller. Be careful here: the platform states three different profit-share figures across its own pages - 5% on one, 7.5% on two others - and its consolidated fees page returns an error, so check inside your account before selling. Euro investments are converted to sterling at the daily European Central Bank rate.
Only on a sale, a flotation or a secondary trade. The secondary market is real and, since May 2025, runs continuously with 90-day listings and the ability to post a bid price. But cumulatively nearly 10,000 people out of 700,000 registered accounts have ever exited that way, for 11.5m pounds, and 25m pounds of lifetime turnover against 3.1bn invested is under 1% of the money put in. Sellers set their own price, with a floor of a penny a share and a ceiling of five times the current valuation. Not all shares are eligible: companies can opt out, and shares are frozen where the platform expects a valuation change, a winding-up or a dissolution, sometimes for a year or more.
