Beurzbyte raises £2.2 million in seed funding through a traditional round and agile funding top ups

Beurzbyte is driven by a mission: to make sure everyone can get high-quality, actionable investment education to empower them to use their money in the smartest way possible.

So when it came to raising a round, they knew that the traditional, slow, lawyer-outsourced, expensive process wasn’t the smart way to use their money. Instead, they found SeedLegals to help them take in funds in a smarter, more efficient way.

The elevator pitch 🚀

Only a third of adults worldwide are financially literate, according to S&P’s Global Financial Literacy survey. To help solve this problem, Pedram Parhizkari and Niels Soete founded Beurzbyte.

Beurzbyte’s platform empowers retail investors to make intelligent, well-informed decisions. While many fintechs promise to democratise the financial markets, the focus on tools and technical access to the markets doesn’t help people who don’t already have knowledge and experience.

Beurzbyte solves the bigger problem: helping the many people who don’t have the investment knowledge they need to navigate the markets. The Beurzbyte team of experienced financial experts break down and explain concepts, assets, pros and cons, risks and rules in short engaging videos.

The challenge: Staying cash and time-efficient while raising from multiple investors 🌪️

With significant experience in raising capital, Beurzbyte co-founder Pedram Parhizkari was reluctant to pay high legal fees for the documentation needed for the seed round.

“After my time at a hedge fund and an investment bank, working with M&A lawyers, I wanted to avoid high fees for what I knew was fairly standard documentation, considering the complexity of the deal,” explains Pedram.

“When we first began our funding round, we were on the hunt for lawyers to prepare the necessary documents. However, we soon realised that the costs were steep and believed our funds could be more effectively directed towards our business. That’s when we discovered SeedLegals. The platform is user-friendly, and its self-service feature made it easy for us as founders to navigate. Whenever we had questions, the SeedLegals team was just a chat away. We successfully completed our funding round at a fraction of the cost,” adds co-founder Niels Soete.

How SeedLegals helped

1. Technology as an accelerator ⚡

With SeedLegals support, Beurzbyte raised £2.2 million through a traditional funding round of £1.5 million and topped the rest up with Instant Investment.

“We had some investors moving fast, and some that were moving slower. Splitting the fundraise up into a round and then a top-up helped us take the money that was available, use it to set up operations, and then collect the rest when those investors were ready.”

Raising via the SeedLegals platform helped Beurzbyte move and grow fast. They closed their round in March, using the funds to start setting up their offices and the studio to shoot videos.

In August 2022, they topped up the round and used those funds to be ready to launch the Beurzbyte app on iOS in March 2023 and on Android in June.

2. Easy-to-build option schemes to empower the Beurzbyte team 🪴

Beurzbyte also used the money they raised to build out the team from two co-founders to six people in total. Even before they raised their round, they knew that an option scheme would be an integral part of their hiring process.

“The importance of sharing equity with your team is something that I learned from advising other companies and seeing what is and isn’t successful,” says Pedram. “First there’s the financial compensation aspect of it, from the employee’s perspective. But from the employer’s perspective, share-earning employees change the dynamic for the better. They think and approach problems like leaders and business owners, not simply as employees.”

The SeedLegals EMI option scheme workflow made building the scheme and documentation fast and simple. Beurzbyte found it helpful to have their cap table, funding documents and option scheme all in one place.

Best of all, the employee dashboard was a major benefit of the SeedLegals option scheme. Beurzbyte wanted to make sure that their team were as invested in the mission behind the company as the founders were – the employee dashboard helps make it more tangible and drive home the benefit.

The impact: Education that makes the financial markets truly accessible💸

Beurzbyte invested the money they raised into building a strong team of investment experts and empowering them through share options.

The funds financed the production of high-quality educational videos and the release of the app for Apple and Android.

Next up: Broadening access and becoming a company benefit 🌍

Beurzbyte recently released an upgrade to their platform that offers a free version and a 7-day free trial, so that users can access content for free initially and see its value.

They’ve also recently released Beurzbyte At Work, where companies will offer their teams access to Beurzbyte’s platform as part of their benefits package to promote financial wellbeing, much like health insurance or gym subsidies promote physical wellbeing.

Any advice for fellow entrepreneurs looking to start their business?🎓

Pedram is evangelical about the importance of testing your product with your customers.

“When you’re creating a product from scratch, precision is really the enemy. It’s much more important to get out to your target customers as early as possible to get feedback. That helps you make sure you’re not making a product to please yourself; you’re making a product that actually brings value to your audience.

“When we started running focus groups of actual users, we discovered that what we thought we needed in the product – all these bells and whistles – weren’t actually wanted at all.

“So don’t be afraid to get your product in front of your customers as soon as possible. Get that feedback early on, and that will set you on the right path.”

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