AxiaFunder hits crowdfunding target just a day after public launch
AxiaFunder has surpassed its own crowdfunding target just one day after taking the campaign public.
The litigation investment platform, which crowdfunds legal cases, launched a Seedrs campaign to raised £200,000.
It had initially been run privately but went public on Monday (9 March) and has now raised more than £220,000.
The money raised will be used for recruitment, marketing and technology development, which includes creating a panel of assessor, barristers and legal experts to consider cases.
To date, AxiaFunder has funded five cases from a case pool of 140.
Its first case win produced a 43 per cent net investor return in eight months, with no case losses to date.
Read more: Litigation finance special report
“As the cost of litigation rises, litigation funding is more important than ever to the rule of law and to a more inclusive society,” Cormac Leech, chief executive of AxiaFunder, said.
“AxiaFunder provides capital for smaller commercial litigation cases thereby helping the legal system to function more effectively.
“AxiaFunder’s litigation funding platform enables small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and individuals to source lower cost and more flexible capital for carefully vetted cases that otherwise often would not progress.”
Leech said policymakers at the Ministry of Justice are actively encouraging firms such as his to source the litigation funding that they describe as the ‘lifeblood of the legal system’, helping to offset the funding shortfall as government legal aid is being steadily withdrawn.
“Unlike equities and high-yield bonds, our returns are uncorrelated to the market or economy, and as one of the first litigation platforms in the UK we have the opportunity to scale and achieve positive network effects before other platforms enter the market,” he added.
“The lack of competition means that we have relatively good pricing power and high margin potential compared to investment platforms in other sectors.
“In due course our aim is to increasingly use technology to deploy a de-centralised case assessment approach which should enable the business to scale rapidly.”
