Hi guys,
I am a previous investor, so is the process I just get em email some time shortly before 10 a.m. to access the crowdfund?
Has any previous investors already received information by email?
Agreed, I think this is a huge achievement and assuming the round fills this is very cheap capital for FT to grow, I think people got a bit carried away with the huge growth in signups.
Even if this capital just went into acquiring SIPPs (via free share promotions) they could probably add Ā£4bn in assets & Ā£20m in revenue with that, although Iām sure they have more effective uses in Europe.
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Surprised by how low the valuation is , given that Trade republic raised at $5bn - I have no idea what the VCs saw in them to justify such a premium (all we know about them is they had ~1m customers and ~6bn EUR in AUA at the time), but itās safe to say that valuation was an outlier;
Interactive investor got acquired for Ā£1.5bn with Ā£133m in revenue (AND ~Ā£40m in profit), Ā£55bn+ AUA, 400k+ active users - they are also growing fairly fast (but not as fast as FT) at around 40% YoY (revenue, profits, users, etc). Thereās also DEGIRO, who were acquired for ~250m EUR (IIRC) with ~500k users.
So yeah, on reflection, imo it would have been irrational for FT to ever fetch more than Ā£1.5bn. Hell, even Ā£650m is probably a bit steep (30x revenue multiple on their run rate), but when accounting for the growth, itās a bit more palatable. I was so sure that the valuation was going to be ridiculous that iād written it off, but will definitely consider it now.
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Absolutely. The product still has rough edges and lacks some basic elements but there is a clear route to profitability and heaps of untapped potential. I think they will ultimately need to widen their demographic and find ways to attract older investors with larger amounts to invest to deserve a seat at the top table but amazing to reflect on how far they have come.
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I agree that having experienced investors onboard will be a massive boon to the business, but itās going to be a hard sell without refactoring the app/service offerings and marketing angle.
At least currently, Freetradeās whole mantra is around āget everybody investing.ā Itās pretty transparent that the strategy is to swim in the blue ocean, attracting millennials/zoomers who arenāt currently investing. In which case, encouraging these new investors to begin investing increasingly larger amounts of their income on a regular basis may be a lower hanging fruit.
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Struggling to find the words to describe how disappointed I am by that valuationā¦however āFreetrade is worth less than what Trade Republic raised earlier in the yearā comes close 
Whatās equally worrying is the information Adam shared:
- 550,000 dud accounts
- Significantly missing revenue targets
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FT proving its product market fit and great engagement metrics is what we should be celebrating vs criticising low valuation. Ā£650m pre money with Ā£25m revenue run rate is by no means low. It will fetch Ā£ unicorn status by April - May 100%. FT reached Ā£25m runrate revenues vs Ā£1.7 actuals it reported in September 2020. Retention rate of 90%.
Letās wish them a crushing crowdfunding tomorrow.
Well done Adam, Viktor and team!
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Circa5000 an Fintech are raising in crowdcube right now and claim to be in the top 10% for customer retention with 59% after 12 months. Given the 1,100,000 user has been built over many years this would seem to be in a similar retention.
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Where did you get the number of dud accounts from?
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I think heās referring to that Freetrade has over 1million accounts but only 500k are active (as shared by Dodds on Twitter). So therefore 550k must be duds?
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Also, the average pot being so low means there must be a huge amount of dud accounts as discussed many times on these threads. Still canāt wait to buy though 
I see people mention it took mins before to sell out does anyone know if that means people like me wonāt get an opportunity at 11am?
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It took minutes to crash crowdcube 
No there were shares available for several days each time, they had to change rounds midway through last time which was confusing.
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AH, excellent 
I wonāt be leaving my laptop until I am on the list but was dreading 11am coming and I couldnāt get any. 
We all know why the Ā£650m valuation - because there is a VC sniffing about who has promised big money but doesnāt want to buy in at a high price, so let the āpeopleā have their little crowdfund because thatās what was promised but keep the price down, itās only Ā£13m after all so not a significant dilution.
So Iām fantasising a VC raise within the next 6 months at a Ā£1b valuation 
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Iāve been saying a VC round is coming, to break Europe will be big money.
Whoās tracking @adam & his private jet
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This is getting expensive leaving the Crowdcube page open as I already bought 2 other stocks whilst flicking through the site (Circa5000 and ID finance for those interested)
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I did ID Finance last time - theyāre an example of incredible communication. You get monthly updates with mean full content, while others you never hear from again!
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Gotta love how Freetrade is front and centre on Crowdcubeās landing page. With Monzo, Moneybox and Chip off to the sideā¦ 
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Has this been posted? Please remove this post if this is supposed to be private (itās public on Vimeo).
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