Investments on crowd-funding platform Crowdcube have reached more than £200m with a little help from lingerie and nightwear.
Founded in 2011, the site’s milestone was reached after Bluebella secured over £1m from more than 700 investors – smashing its £500,000 target.
Crowdcube itself is the company’s most successful crowdfunding campaign, which raised £6.7m more than five years ago.
The site has also helped goHenry, a prepaid Visa card for six to 18 year olds, raise £4m, and BrewDog raise £3.5m.
Co-founder Luke Lang said: “We predicted last year that investment rounds would get bigger in 2016, with the average amount raised going up.
“In our experience, this prediction definitely rang true with the largest crowdfunding rounds to date having been completed on Crowdcube this year.
“As 2016 draws to a close, 116 raises have been done on Crowdcube, raising a total of £69m for ambitious businesses in the last 12 months alone.”
He added that he expected more companies to return to the platform for series B and series C rounds during 2017, and more returns for investors.
Crowdcube is the first UK platform of its kind to raise £200m, and listed its most successful campaigns:
Crowdcube: £6.7 million
goHenry: £4 million
BrewDog: £3.5 million (currently live on Crowdcube)
Pocket: £2.5 million
Innis & Gunn: £2.4 million
Witt Energy: £2.4 million
GripIt Fixings: £2 million
Zing Zing: £1.6 million
HealthUnlocked: £1.5 million
Powervault: £1.4 million