Seems moneybox is coming soon to crowdcube. Whatās everyoneās thoughts?
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The concept seems a bit gimmicky to me, but maybe iām too much of a stock market purist. I donāt like the idea of my purchases being rounded up to the nearest pound so that the change can be invested in companies I canāt name, and valuations I am (presumably) clueless about.
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Big fan here. I think theyāve done a very good job in keeping things simple, and for many will have offered time access to capital markets and investing through well known, low cost ETFs.
Aside from the General Investment Account, they offer ISA, LISA and a pensions product (maybe also a Junior ISA?) which covers a broad client base. I would be keen to understand what the AUA split looks like between the products, but I suspect their Pension transfer service will have helped push this to >Ā£1bn .
A lot of people complain about round up implementation and the investment flow and process but I think this is really a limitation of banking infrastructure. A minor value add would be to improve the spending insights on round ups. Defo one for Freetrade to also keep an eye on from a competition perspective, more so than T212 or RH, who play in a different space altogether.
Edited to add:
Very keen to see their valuation vis-a-vis the last freetrade raise.
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Though i donāt use them, i am a fan of the idea of roundups being put to good use. In a months spend it really does add up and iād rather it go on something useful as opposed to a few espressoās ( not in this climate anyway ).
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They have high fees but I do use the product for an auto round-ups on a GIA. (Freetrade please add this feature itās brilliant).
Seems like they have a good product, slick app, decent user base. They advertise A LOT which has probably assisted user growth. Iād be interested in maybe contributing to this funding round.
They nealry have half a million clients and is very popular with the āmilleninal crowdā I will be investing as I seem them them growing or been bought by a larger finincal compnay or even a social media company to get in to this untapped market. I compare it to instagram, even though I donāt use or understand it, I do see the potentail for it and thats what the next generation are using and so have facebook shares.
The valuation and revenue figures will be interesting. There are a lot of customers following their TV advertising and presumably a lot of marketing spend.
Thereās definitely a place for it, to help people develop the saving/investing habit. A question is whether round ups are more of a feature than a business. Does open banking make round ups available much more easily? If so theyāll be used everywhere.
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Been a customer for years and a massive fan. As Iāve gotten more into stocks/shares Iāve started to save less through it, but as a fire and forget itās perfect. Theyāve cleverly kept the product very simple and easy to use, marketing is solid and their customer service/general team are superb. They only have 120 employees, so itās impressive what theyāve achieved with a relatively small team. Iām almost certainly going to invest, primarily through loyalty and a belief that theyāre a really well ran business who are going places.
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Iāve just opened up a Lifetime ISA (Stocks and Shares) account with them just this past week!
Iām planning to max out the allowed Ā£4000/yr in order to get the government 25% bonus towards the cost of a first house purchase (or retirement but my goal is to be a homeowner).
A guaranteed 25% ROI seems like a no brainer to me. Notwithstanding any loss of capital from market fluctuations. Thatās why Iāve chosen the most cautious plan.
I like their simple premise, and the ability to customise your asset allocation freely between bonds (corporate and government), global shares (normal or socially responsible), global property shares and cash funds.
On the Crowdcube offering, Iāll certainly take an interest in the valuation and be looking to put a small amount in, similar to what I did for Freetrade. Iāve already registered for early access to the funding round.
I agree it is a promising company with the potential to be acquired by a larger financial firm over the coming years perhaps. This happened with Wealthify, which I have used for the last few years and only just started my ISA transfer over to Freetrade. They got a majority stake bought by AVIVA, and a few weeks ago they bought the remaining shares from the CEO, so they now effectively control the company though apparently it will stay independent. I donāt know whether they ever had a crowdfunding round however, as that would be a great point for comparison?
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Very interesting opinions, not a user myself but the round up feature appeals to me. Maybe Freetrade can consider something similar to bolster AUM given consumer spending will increase as the pandemic eases and economy recovers. Will probably invest but will definitely run through the deck with a fine tooth comb given the increasing competition in the overall space.
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Great, thank you @BOOM !
So they were initially valued at close to Ā£10m, with over 9% equity offered for Ā£1.1m. That seems like a good deal, working out that the crowdfunders got about 0.8 Price/Estimated Value.
This article says AVIVA paid Ā£17m for a majority stake in 2018:
https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/aviva-reveals-how-much-it-spent-on-wealthify-buy/a1207369
I can only assume that means roughly just over 50% of the shares?
This article details the full takeover this June:
No details Iāve found on the final amount paid, or how many shares outstanding there still are, not owned by AVIVA that is. I assume the crowd funders still own their stakes, unless they sold off to AVIVA in 2018?
So if we assume Ā£17m was for 50% of the company then that would have been an EV of Ā£34m in 2018. Letās say equity value is Ā£40m now for simplicity and steady increase in past two years. The estimated value has therefore quadrupled from ~Ā£10m in 2016 over the space of four years.
I think thatās a pretty good return if thatās about right!
Can we stop talking about crowdfunding!! Iām going to go broke soon making me invest in other companies 
Haha seriously I love this community, bringing topics to our attention and have an open discussion about it and willing to give great opinions if good or bad that someone else might not see.
I shall do some research on it but it sounds great from this forum.
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Them and Nutmeg, canāt seem to find a tube carriage without them!
Pretty tempting adverts too in my opinion.
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Interesting update from Cowboy released this morning incl a; trading update, further fund raise and changing of bylaws. Interested in others views on itā¦ anyone?
My only comment on this is that I am a bit frustrated that the VC shares that they will create will have priority over the crowdfunding ones.
I guess this puts in perspective the culture of Freetrade that made sure that their VC shares were exactly the same as those of their crowdfunding investors
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Hi Spyros, given series A had priority over seed series I felt the dye was already cast on future raises to follow suite. So I donāt find it hugely surprising although itās a precedent I donāt overly like. Normally the argument goes that the previous round investors are protected by a rising underlying valuation ā¦ thatās obviously not the case here.
Operating performance seems ok but not great. ā¬8m of 1H20 revenues vs guidance for ā¬27m this year. The FY guide was probably accounting for a fundraise and more investment in 2H so probably not as far behind plan as it would first seem but still not shooting the lights out, especially given likely substantial COVID benefits.
The raise is what I find disappointing. Clearly weāre in a tough capital environment but money is available in my experience for good companies atm. For the pre-money for this new incremental raise to be at cā¬48 vs our post money of ā¬55m is disappointing in my view. And us not having an opportunity to invest at that level. There is money out there for good businesses, I guess they see an enlarged structural opportunity and they want to chase it fast but itās still disappointing they couldnāt at least hold the valuationā¦ imo.
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hey, I voted NO for CowBoy. I canāt agree for this:
"Existing shareholders are being asked to sign the Investment Agreement to commit to:
Waiving any of their preferential subscription rights, and any other rights and restrictions; "A preferential right to the holders of the Series A Preferred Shares to a return of their initial investments on a liquidation or exit. This means that in certain circumstances Series A Preferred Shareholders, including Crowdcube Nominee would receive no return on their investment until after the Series B Preferred shareholders had received a return equal to their initial investment.