The product solves the age-old problem of liquidity for early investors, which has been exacerbated by businesses staying private for longer, and represents an exciting next step in the evolution of investment crowdfunding. 

While Crowdcube has previously completed secondary transactions involving single investors, such as those of Revolut (20x return) and Brewdog (1.8x return), the DCO now seeks to democratise this process, offering the shares of participating early investors to retail investors. The product will be open to European later-stage businesses looking for alternative ways to create liquidity.

It addresses a key trend of companies, like Slack and Spotify, moving away from buzzy IPO listings to direct listings. The DCO connects three sets of stakeholders: entrepreneurs who wish to offer their communities a stake in their business, new investors via Crowdcube’s investor platform, and the current shareholders in the business who want to take up the opportunity to sell shares.

Darren Westlake, CEO and Co-founder Crowdcube said: "We're seeing a global trend towards high growth, household names, looking for alternative ways of rewarding early investors with some liquidity, without the burden of going public through a traditional IPO. These same forward-thinking businesses also love the idea of offering their loyal customers the chance to become new shareholders, without the need to raise further investment. The DCO solves this conundrum.” 

“For European businesses looking for a new, alternative IPO track, our campaign-led approach is proven to maximise awareness, engagement and investment from a business's community, and ours, to ensure early investors get the liquidity they want and as many people as possible to become new shareholders in a business they love. We strongly believe that we can take all the best practice we have developed in participating in 90% of the most popular primary equity crowdfunding raises in Europe and apply that to secondaries."

Having successfully raised funds for close to 1,000 businesses, amassing a membership of nearly one million retail investors, Crowdcube has already established itself as a pioneer in raising equity.

Since lockdown, Freetrade, Moneybox and what3words have all raised over £7m from over 35,000 investors - three of the most popular campaigns of equity crowdfunding history. Other businesses raising with the platform include British unicorns Monzo, Revolut and BrewDog, Curve, JustPark, carwow and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.