London is quickly becoming the crowdfunding capital of the world, according to new figures from The Crowdfunding Centre.

London calling

The UK capital beat out San Francisco and New York with local businesses and startups creating more campaigns in July than in any other city.

Just over 250,000 new crowdfunding campaigns launched worldwide between January and July, but in London 12 new projects launch each day, on average.

Approximately 32 percent of these achieve their funding targets to raise on average £10,000 each time. These projects come from a variety of different sectors, particularly technology, gaming and publishing.

Hyper-connected startups

Crowdfunding Centre CEO, Barry James, said: “When we look at the database, I was stunned to see that London sees the most crowdfunding activity on most days.

“It’s clear from the figures that the hyper-connectivity of the startup community in London is helping. There is also the fact that compared to the US, where centres of excellence are scattered around the East and West coasts, London has become a centre of many specialisms.”

Chancellor George Osborne says: “We stand at the dawn of a new era of innovative finance, and setting the objective of the UK leading the world, London has become the world capital of Crowdfunding.”

Rise of alt. funding

Beyond London, data shows crowdfunding activity across the UK is intensifying. Just $4 million was raised via crowdfunding activity in 2012, but this climbed to £28 million in 2013. Nesta suggests alternative funding sources including crowfunding will achieve £1.6 billion by the end of 2014.

There are approximately 87 active crowdfunding services in the UK at present. These offer support across a range of sectors and you can consult our database to get a bird’s eye view of some of the available funding sources.

The number of crowdfunding platforms operating in the UK rose by over 50 per cent in 2013 according to Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation.

Crowdfunding is growing fast

Liam Collins, Senior Researcher at Nesta, explains that a combination of modern technology and the financial crisis has accelerated crowdfunding growth:

“We’ve seen phenomenal growth in the number of platforms over the last five years, across every type from reward-based crowdfunding to peer-to-peer lending. Crowdfunding has proved immensely popular, both in the UK and globally, and these figures show that this trend is set to continue.”

It has been estimated that startups supported by crowdfunding have created 426 new jobs in London.