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Female-focused angel investor network, Scale Investors, has teamed up with crowdfunding platform VentureCrowd to create a new platform for investors and female-led business on International Women's Day.
The collaboration between Scale Investors and VentureCrowd has two main
components. The partnership will see VentreCrowd ease syndication of an investment for Scale Investors by handling the administration side of the investment.Secondly, companies that Scale Investors invest in are able to gain further exposure to the market by running campaigns via the VentureCrowd platform. A benefit for both organisations is that through this, investors have access to more deals across both drivers.
Scale Investors is a network of angel investors who connect with, invest in, and mentor female entrepreneurs.
Now in its fifth year, Scale Investors is enjoying a period of growth, with its community of investors collectively investing over $7 million in 13 female led businesses since 2012.
Sunny Yu, CEO of VentureCrowd, says the partnership is an exciting time for the company.
"We are thrilled to have joined forces with Scale Investors and are looking forward to seeing more women investing in female-led startups," says Yu.
"This exciting engagement will facilitate further streamlined administration for angel investors to early stage venture capital deals, particularly with the use of VentureCrowd's private syndicate platform and compelling technology for an improved user experience throughout the investment process. We look forward to building on our mutual expertise to bring startups and sophisticated investors together."
CEO of Scale Investors, Ariana Barker, says there are a number of key benefits for Scale users.
"From the partnership the major benefits are that seamlessness, ease of access, a professional engagement around how to invest in this asset class," says Barker.
"It will provide more investors access to the deals that we are bringing them. So what we're seeing at the moment is a very fragmented, very illiquid, very complex ecosystem around investing in startups. But we also see a large amount of capital to be allocated - there's a lot of cash."
"By partnering with VentureCrowd we're able to professionalise the experience so we're also able to leverage the platform to fit other investors who might be interested in the same kinds of deals that Scale brings - we can actually show it to them."
Yu says investors at Scale Investors will now receive a simpler and easier process for investment derived from the partnership with Venture Crowd.
"It's really about user experience and streamlining the whole process," says Yu.
"What venture crowd is providing is a centralised platform for syndicate groups like scale to be able to manage the administration and also the documentation of the whole investment process in a streamlined and online manner."
As part of International Women's Day, Scale Investors has announced new female board members Catherine Robson, Judith Smith and Lynda Coker. They join existing board members Lynne Thornton, Sean Gregory, Annette Kimmitt and chair Susan Oliver.
Yu says it was important for the company that Scale Investors was so passionate about female led startups and companies.
"At VentrureCrowd we're very supportive of startups in general but in particular we support diversity and we support female founders," says Yu.
"We like to see startups that are founded by female entrepreneurs become very successful businesses."
Barker says Scale Investors tries to capture the essence of International Women's Day in everything they do.
"Women are becoming really good investors," says Barker.
"The more I'm involved with Scale and the more I see the processes and the questions that female investors ask and the way that female founders have structured their businesses and the way that startups with gender balanced teams have a little bit more thoughtfulness in terms of bringing deals to the market."
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