Q: What do you get when you combine the swipe-to-like mechanism, popularized by dating app Tinder, with a wealth of potential equity crowdfunding investment opportunities?
A: an aggregator-sorter app called Off3r, that’s launched in the U.K. today (on iOS and Android) — promising to apply Tinderish thumb grease to equity crowdfunding investment campaigns to widen the deal flow funnel.
The aggregator app pulls in campaign content from multiple equity crowdfunding platforms at launch, including Crowdcube, Seedrs, Angel List U.K., Angels Den, Crowdfunder, Funding Tree and Investing Zone, letting investors maximize their exposure to businesses they might want to back within a single interface, while also applying an addictive, Tinder-style snap-decision sorting mechanism.
Off3r is really just a way of starring an investment opportunity that looks interesting for proper perusal later. So whether it ends up saving time or maximizing deal flow efficiency is up for debate. But it does offer a tweakable one-stop-shop for scanning multiple (U.K.) equity crowdfunding investment opportunities.
“[Off3r] removes friction, thereby increasing efficiency in deal sourcing,” argues founder Lex Deak, who is also the founder of global super angels investment club QVentures. “It is a useful tool for investors who are currently having to access up to a dozen platforms individually, it is also a nice lightweight channel for entrepreneurs and the wider start-up ecosystem for staying abreast of trends and what’s hot.
“As we grow we’ll be able to offer unsurpassed insight into how groups invest together and which deals are most popular. In the near future it will be the norm to invest in unlisted equities and alternative investments from your smartphone.”
Investors wanting to put money into a business they’ve found via Off3r are redirected to the relevant platform. The app doesn’t currently have a business model of its own, but if usage scales Deak says it will be looking to take a cut of any transactions it generates. He says development thus far has primarily been bootstrapped by the management team.
“As our numbers grow and we include a wider variety of alternative instruments, such as loans and property deals, we will charge a small percentage on transactions,” he says. “We’re working on including tailored content for users in relation to their investment preferences which may open up an additional stream. Lastly we are collecting insightful data on the alternative finance sector, we will always make the majority of this data freely available but there may be a case for a cost for bespoke reports in the future.”
Initially Off3r is U.K. only but the plan is to open it up to Europe and further afield, later this year. The first version of the app offers only minimal filters so users can select which platforms they’d like to see deals from and customize how often they’d like to be notified of new deals. Deak says the next version of the app will includes more advanced notifications so users can get a push notification when a liked deal reaches a certain percentage of funding.
Edit note: Since launch, the name of the startup has been changed from Tendr to Off3r — following copyright infringement action by a wedding list business that was already using the name. This article has been updated to reflect the change
