Growthdeck.com - the new kid in town.

Is the the moment we have been waiting for?

The rise of equity Crowdfunding has been rapid since 2012 and with this disruption there is bound to be turbulence and change. Being a first mover is not always an advantage when tackling something so new.

As far as we know, no platform has yet put together an offer that compares to the new one by Growthdeck.com

The idea behind this new platform, which launches for real in January 2016, is simple enough. Publish professional, investible pitches and promote them to sensible investors who really care about putting their money into great UK businesses.No gimmicks, no nonsense, just great business all round.

A minimum investment requirement of £500k will remove much of the chaff that the likes of Crowdcube put out and the minimum investment of £1000 will help to keep the investors at the more sophisticated end of the spectrum. The emphasis is very much on quality over quantity.

The really clever bit, however, is in the service level offered to investors and entrepreneurs.

Growthdeck has a growing team of experienced private equity experts and offers pitchers real help in presenting their offer in the best possible way. The platform will not publish plans that that the team do not support.

They promise a thorough DD service; lunches are taken in house. This help is ongoing throughout the course of the investment not just until the shares are issued  - something that we think is unique to ECF. Its more akin to joining an investment family than merely raising some capital. This is bound to be beneficial to both businesses and also therefore to the investors in them.

For investors, a nominee structure allows all the hassle of company to shareholder comms to be handled by the platform - efficiently and with real information presented on a timely basis. Twice yearly management reports will keep investors up to date with progress. Whilst some other sites do push their companies to provide this type of information, in our experience the results are sporadic and even sometimes misleading. Businesses with Growthdeck will be able to concentrate on what they are best at; whilst investors are kept reliably informed.

This just might be exactly what ECF in the UK needs - a very sensible, well thought out proposition, that will develop real business opportunities and allow informed investment in them. Hats off.