My own notes (this is NOT investment advice - make your own DD!):
Idea - 5/5 - something I definitively want to use although it took me a little bit to understand what they meant by ‘over-the-top’
Team - 4/5 - very experienced in AI, Insurance and product, led by an entrepreneur that has scaled a business before. Seems to be missing a marketing genius?
Financials - ?/5 - financial forecast provided doesn’t seem to marry with the potential revenue. The pitch talks about high % commissions, but financial forecast seems very low. Conservative? Not ambitious enough?
Technology - 5/5 for potential for being the Monzo of Insurtech, ?/5 for execution as it’s not live yet
Valuation - 3.5/5 - At £3.8m it’s not low, but the team has been working on the idea for almost a year and Monzo’s first valuation was £6m
Market size - 5/5 - Insurance is a very large market. I’m not sure how big, but like my healthcare investments: the market is always very large.
Potential for growth - 5/5 - if gets traction, it’s a no-brainer
Competition - 3/5 - mainly price comparison websites, but pitch deck addresses any concerns.
Exit potential - 5/5 - Pitch deck also addresses this - I agree it has a huge potential, but execution will be key.
All in all, very interesting proposition with a good team still at an early stage. Like many others, it will come down to execution, so I need to do some more digging on the team and their backgrounds.
I hope this helps. Please share your notes too so that we can share knowledge.
The CEO founded syndicate rooms, a Cambridge VC fund, it started off as a crowdfunding platform but seems to have moved to the standard VC model. I can’t say the business model is exciting, it’s just a platform screening for the best deals, so it’s probably not actually AI they are using.
Having looked at it, I’m concerned they are underestimating their acquisition costs.
Also, the big comparison sites already have my core details. Moneysupermarket (for example) have quoted me for car, home and pet insurance so it does not feel like a leap for them to automate to proactively look for better deals. Gut feel is that provider contracts are a bigger issue than any technology. Agree with the above, feels like an overuse of the term AI.
Any further thoughts on this one? It’s closing this week. I put a small sum at the beginning to get the updates, increased a bit last week and I’m now considering if I invest any further before they close.
I attended one of the webinars and it gave me some confidence that it’s going the right way.
For what it is worth I am in this one (before seedrs round). I have a lot of time for Goncalo. I think it is an interesting evolving idea and space but fundamentally I am increasingly about backing people and he has learnt so much from syndicate room…
I’ve used both before, but it’s fair to say I prefer crowdcube.
2 out of 3 of my investments on Seedrs have had serious oversights of their behalf. I would even go so far as to say they have willingly turned a blind eye on occasions so long as they get their fees.
It’s a shame because I really like Rnwl and would otherwise get involved, but I refuse to give Seedrs any more fees out of principle.
I don’t see any red flags on Rnwl though, so don’t let my poor experience with Seedrs put you off!