Crowdcube and Seedrs today announced that they have terminated
their proposed merger (Crowdcube and Seedrs abandon merger
during CMA investigation). It remains to be seen what the
consequence of the failure to merge will be for each company.
Background
The merger was announced on 5 October 2020, subject to clearance
from the UK's Competition & Markets Authority
(CMA). The CMA launched its merger inquiry on 22
October 2020, utilising a fast track procedure to shorten Phase 1
of the inquiry and move to the Phase 2 of the investigation on 12
November 2020. The dedicated page for the inquiry can be found here.
CMA Findings
On 24 March 2021 the CMA published their provisional findings,
in which it was stated that the proposed merger "may be
expected to result in a substantial lessening of competition (SLC)
within the supply of equity crowdfunding (ECF) platforms to SMEs
and investors in the UK." (notice of provisional
findings), with attendant risk of a lack of
