šŸš€ Crowdfunding graveyard āš°ļø

BidVine who raised via Seedrs including a sizeable VC investment announced they have gone into administration and have already sold off the IP. No public finance comms or details of the administratorsā€¦.just goodbye, weā€™re done.

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Interesting - where did you hear that from?

Itā€™s sad how little these companies care. I know of at least one company that was dead with the founders already on another project for a year before any communication of itā€™s status.

Or maybe they are just really burned out at that point and want to wash their hands of it.

Companies House has more information on this, including a 80-page statement of administratorā€™s proposal: BIDVINE LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

Sidebar; I didnā€™t invest in this.That pre-money valuation looks insane Bidvine | EIS Crowdfunding Campaign | Seedrs

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Just like a company I invested in, a childrens clothes company called wild and gorgeous. One day all fine, the next day gone into administration, thanks for all your money - bye!

Then they have the nerve to return a year or so later, the exact same name etc but this time free of all those pesky ā€œshareholdersā€ ā€¦

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I think GripIt is still going, but it did get restructured.

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Anything you can provide to backup this statement?

Iā€™m an investor in Gripit, last update was in January 2021 after the CVA was completed. Website still appears to be live, and thereā€™s some activity on Companies House in July although accounts are overdue.

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Swipii joins the dreaded list. I didnā€™t invest after downloading the app I found that they were too slow at onboarding shops.

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They just raised 868k in April this year, incredible!
(Not an investor)

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Would be amazing to understand how they burnt that cash in such a small period of time. Unreal.

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I didnā€™t realise they had raised this year too, but thatā€™s madness how quick they burnt through the cash!

Incredible indeed. It seems that CC does not do anything at all to filter the companies raising on their platform.

And now, CC even wants 5% cut on investorsā€™ returns. Unbelievable!

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Sad reality is that every company is window dressed for raises. Also I donā€™t believe they flag material concerns around their ability to remain a going concern, itā€™s actually pretty worrying.

It seems natural for a company to raise their valuations and simply issue new projection based on whatever facts change. Only clear winners are their short term debtors, staff for wage costs and crowdcube/legal teams. I would like to think the owners havenā€™t benefited, but chances are if they lent private funds into the company - they will extract that money and possibly even pay themselves a handsome wage.

I would think really hard about follow up investments in a company, especially after the first two rounds of investment or so. Ultimately you are diluting any multiples and question why there are no VCs involved. Having a major external shareholder keeping them honest should be mandatory once a company/valuation is of a certain size. May be crowdcube should match any funding raised.

My biggest burn of paper money was oval money - the fact they went under was a real joke. There is no way that should have occurred given the product and market.

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I lost on Oval Money too, and Lightly Tech, Keen Home, and Lightvert.

Lightvert was my first and largest single round investment. But I thank Lightvert for drawing me to crowdfunding. Otherwise, I would not have known and invested in Freetrade, and in many other promising startups.

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I have similar feelings towards Sugru, company was very dubious and I ended up losing most of my stake (very small stake thankfully) but without them I would never have come across crowdfunding and thus Freetrade - so every cloud and all that

My biggest loss so far is Ā£1,000 - not huge but big enough to piss me off

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I think Crowdcube need to stop allowing companies to add funds already received to the total of the raise. Its deceptive and hoping that people dont notice. It gives a false view of remaining runway.
ā€œĀ£708,232 of the funds on the progress bar represent funds raised by the Company prior to launching the campaign. The Company has already received these funds, shares have been issued, and these funds may be spent whilst the pitch is live. Completion of the Crowdcube raise will occur on the same material terms and share priceā€

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CC even wants 5% cut on investorsā€™ returns.

Waitā€¦ what?

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Only of the upside. You get to keep 100% of the downside! :wink:

Crowdcube implemented a success fee on raises after April this year.

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They are taking the P!

Crowdcubeā€™s success fee only applies to profits made on investments in businesses that opened to investment on or after the 1st of April 2021.

So this shouldnā€™t affect FT as itā€™s for new listings. Assuming I can sell at a profit (:pray:t2:)

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I questioned this before. It is the investments that refer to the 1st April 2021 date, not the businesses, so the new crowdfund will have the fee attached.

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