UK Crowdfunding Association Chair and Abundance Investment Co-founder Brings Two Decades of Retail Investor Advocacy to GECA’s Borderless Mission
The Global Equity Crowdfunding Alliance (GECA) today announced the appointment of Bruce Davis as Strategic Advisor for the United Kingdom to its Steering Committee, significantly strengthening the organisation’s regulatory expertise and UK market intelligence at a pivotal moment for global retail investment.
The case for crowdfunding has always been about giving more people access to investments in the things they care about. That argument doesn’t stop at national borders.”
— Bruce Davis, Strategic Advisor – UK, GECA
Bruce is Chair of the UK Crowdfunding Association (UKCFA), the trade body representing the UK’s regulated crowdfunding sector in its engagement with HM Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority. He is also Co-founder and Joint Managing Director of Abundance Investment, the world’s first regulated crowdfunding platform, which has raised more than £150 million from retail investors for over 60 sustainable infrastructure projects since 2012.
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Prior to founding Abundance with Karl Harder and Louise Wilson, Bruce was a member of the founding team that created Zopa.com – the world’s first peer-to-peer lending platform – and has worked extensively researching money and financial innovations for institutions across the UK and Europe.
A Career Built Around Retail Investor Access
Abundance Investment launched in April 2012 after a three-year authorisation process with the Financial Services Authority – part of a new wave of newly authorised firms that together created the world’s first regulated crowdfunding market. From a £5 minimum investment, ordinary people could lend directly to renewable energy projects, local authorities, and green infrastructure across the UK.
In 2020, Abundance pioneered Community Municipal Investments, enabling UK councils to issue green bonds directly to their citizens. By March 2026, 20 councils had used the platform to finance net-zero projects, with more than £20 million mobilised from over 3,000 retail investors for council green bonds alone. Abundance became a certified B Corporation in 2020 and won the Ashden Gold Award in 2014 for “Powering Clean Energy Investment.”
Regulatory Voice at a Critical Moment
In January 2024, Bruce was appointed Chair of the UKCFA – the trade body he had helped found years earlier as a founding director. Under his chairmanship, the UKCFA has become an increasingly vocal advocate for proportionate regulation.
In a December 2024 letter to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Bruce warned that “the UK is now seen as having one of the most highly regulated markets for this type of investment in the world – overtaking even the US which has long been a laggard on supporting the benefits of crowdfunding,” and that excessive regulation has made new issuance “uneconomic” for many platforms.
That diagnosis sits at the heart of why his GECA appointment matters.
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