[Crowdfunding 🔨] Curve

You don’t have to feel like much of an oracle to predict Curve as the first super large fintech to go bust.

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When I looked at their pitch deck and did a bit of googling it seemed like some people may have been using curve to pay HMRC using their credit card indirectly (as far as I know HMRC do not accept credit card payments) - and then getting cash back from their credit card.

But I read recently that Curve now apply a fee to do this - so I would guess if people were using Curve for this reason, they will now stop using curve, reducing active users further.

Gaming CC cashback/points has always seemed to me the main draw of Curve. I stopped using mine in the early days after Amex withdrew support but there have always been other good points cards that could be used for the same purpose.

Hi everyone,

So it appears Curve has raised quite a big chunk of cash (95m$) although apparently a bit less than what was expected (around 100m£)! Their plan is to launch in the US. Any happy crowdfunder around?

Without knowing the valuation I can’t comment.

I’ve not had an email from them yet confirming the terms.

im an investor in Curve .

Curve just filed their accounts

£28.5m operating loss on £5.9m of revenue 😯

(It was a 14 month period so not entirely comparable to 2018)

Other stats:
- Gross txn volume: £826m (up from £219m)
- Customers: 860k (up from 230k)
- 73% of revenue from interchange fees

🔥 pic.twitter.com/EGqKS12nYR

— Robert Collings (@RobertCollings_) January 11, 2021

Users doubled in 2020 then - at 2m now.

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Did anybody who invested in Curve through Crowdcube get contacted about the latest investment round?

According to the docs they originally sent out it stated:

“Investors shall receive pre-emption rights providing the size of the Crowdcube Nominees shareholding remains above 2% of the Company.”

Also given that Crowdcube had an open call to register interest at - https://www.crowdcube.com/explore/curve

It’s all weird - did I miss a mail that others received?

Do you have any idea how curve is making money from interchange fees? I would have assumed they’d have to pass any fees onto the underlying card so wouldn’t keep any for themselves

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I’m reading the Crowdcube request for interest as something that Curve aren’t involved in. It’s saying there’s a rumour that Curve are raising and, if they are, would you like Crowdcube to be a part of it. It sounds more like an evidence gathering exercise to use in a pitch to get Curve to use Crowdcube again to me.

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So Curve is crowdfunding again!
And they finally disclosed the Series C pre-money valuation: 592m£.

https://www.curve.com/crowdfunding2021/

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I could never see the appeal of curve. With Apple Pay I can already choose my payment method from a list of accounts. The feature to allow credit cards to act like debit cards was neat. I passed on their last crowdfunding round as I could not work out how they actually made money and the details were light in the pitch deck.

Impressed that they have managed to gain 2M customers though.

I’m passing on this one and saving my money for the next Freetrade round!

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I really like my Curve card & use it as my main card, even when using Apple Pay, it just seems to make like easier. I’m also an investor in the last round, initially surprised the valuation wasn’t closer to the $1bn mark, but with revenues still relatively low & without expanding into the US yet guess makes sense.
I think they’ll get bought out rather than IPO, they seem pretty close with Samsung running their card payments app I believe.
The credit / buy now pay later seems like it could be a big hit & super simple to use. Could be a real driver of users & revenue.

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Cruve crowd funding is live now, £3M raised so far, link below:

£4.5m now… it never ceases to impress me how fast people are willing to throw money at those!

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The Csuite have an incredible pedigree with big names in relevant industries but I really struggle to see the point if I have all my cards of Apple Pay already.

£5.6m now

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They seem to burn a lot of £ each month for creating a solution that’s already legacy tech. :smiling_face_with_tear:

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1.Not all cards support apple pay
2. you can withdraw £ from credit card interest free
3. You can move expenses between cards ( actually paying off card)

The nearly £600M pre-money valuation seems too high to me - but I guess they did get VC investment around this valuation. Difficult to tell with the limited information available.

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I don’t believe for one second they have 2 million customers.
I also don’t believe that the UK regulatory authorities will allow being able to back track on purchases and move payments all over the place. I don’t think it’s workable.
The fin tech bubble will burst and unfortunately Curve will be one of the victims.

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