Glopho’s £150k round cornerstoned by a £100k SEIS structured investment from an LBA syndicate
Seed stage London based crowd-sourced photo sharing service, Glopho, has closed a £150k SEIS structured funding round which was corner stoned by a £100k investment by a syndicate of 4 LBA angels. The company has developed an internet based free-to-use website for people to upload their news photos and is supported by purpose-built smartphone apps across iOS, Android and Blackberry. The company’s website will provide advertisers with an innovative opportunity to engage with consumers, and it will also deliver a marketplace for traditional media to access a new source of crowd-sourced news photos. This first external funding round will now support the full launch of the company’s product and allow it to significantly drive up monthly page impressions and unique user metrics. They fully intend to return to LBA in an EIS funding round towards the end of the year.
Simon Walker, Glopho CEO, comments, “We were delighted to complete our first round with a syndicate of investors that have so much energy and experience to offer. After nearly 2 years of development, their support and input will accelerate our product development, as well as supporting a full launch to get Glopho more widely used and recognised as the place to publish and share images that tell the news.”
Anthony Clarke, Managing Director of LBA, comments, “Simon gave a very strong presentation recently to the LBA Investor network and my congratulations to the company in closing their first external funding round structured under the new SEIS scheme. This deal demonstrates LBA's commitment to also help start up companies with strong management teams to raise the initial seed capital to fuel their growth. LBA plans to launch an SEIS co-investment ' Side Car Fund' shortly to invest alongside our Network into seed deals to provide Fund investors with a spread portfolio of SEIS based businesses. Investors in the Fund will be able to benefit from the new 50% up front income tax break and other tax benefits of the SEIS Scheme”.
