Scaling a global business: why Seedrs chooses Wise

Launched in 2012, Seedrs is Europe’s largest equity crowdfunding platform. A truly global business, Seedrs has active investors and entrepreneurs from 48 countries.

The company uses Wise for its international payroll as well as smaller transactions, invoices and customer account withdrawals, in Europe and the US.

####Working at Seedrs

We visited Charlie and Jakub from the Seedrs finance team to discuss the challenges and successes so far for the company.

Jakub joined Seedrs from the corporate world and was happy to leave behind the old structure of traditional financial services. ‘We’re given a lot of freedom but you’re also accountable for solving your own challenges - people want to know about the problem, but the solution too. It’s a really motivating place to work where people share the same vision.’

Charlie has been at Seedrs since 2014 and shares a similar outlook. ‘Having watched and been part of how the company has changed and grown over the past couple years has been great. It’s clear everyone wants to succeed, which makes working life here so enjoyable.’

####Any advice on efficiently scaling a business?

Charlie: ‘I joined at a time when consolidation was desperately needed. The functionality of the Finance team was quite disperse, we had a lot of suppliers but lacked economies of scale. By recruiting more help and understanding our needs, not ignoring them, we’ve seen a huge positive shift over the past year.’

Jakub: ‘There’s no denying we’ve come a long way since both of us joined. Like any company, as we grow, we face greater demands and so need to be more efficient in our processes. One of the great challenges was how to streamline our operations in order to scale the business.’

‘It’s nothing new to hear that setting up a business takes time, effort and cost. But when the business is also cross border, that means a fee with every international transaction, and these fees add up. Wise is easy to use and it’s reassuring to be confident you’re not wasting money every time.’

####Batch payments

As with most growing global companies, efficiency is key. A big part of their need for Wise is the batch payments service which they use to process their international payroll smoothly.

Charlie explains: ‘Fees with international transactions soon add up and Wise helps to keep our costs down, while ensuring a timely receipt of the funds.’

‘When paying salaries through a bank, you can’t be sure when the money leaves your account, especially with international payments. Batch payments ensures consistency in our payments processing and limits human error. The process is extremely quick too - it takes no longer than ten seconds. It’s comforting to have confidence in something so easy to use.’