Iām new to the community and actually only stumbled on it through following @Freetrade_Team1 on Twitter and the Monzo community over timeā¦ so youāre already growing the Freetrade community Alex!
I really enjoy tracking early-stage start-ups, hoping that one day they will do a crowdfunding round! So I thought Iād ask what start-ups (Fintech or otherwise) would be on everyoneās crowdfunding wish-list?
One I was really hoping recently would include an element of crowdfunding in their seed round was Emma, but unfortunately not!
Iāve not used their service yet but I really like their ethical approach to providing their service, plus the fact that according to their research (alongside the University of Manchester), 55% of people were overpaying on their mortgage, by an average of Ā£294 per month which seems like a big opportunity to me! Iād recommend listening to this Rebank podcast interview with their CEO, if youāre interested in hearing more about them.
I really like the look of Pensionbee. I wish there was a platform that simply consolidated the pensions data so you could see them all in one app without having to combine them.
Thanks, I hadnāt heard of Farewill before. Looks very disruptive. Difficult to find much information though on customer/user numbers to see how successful they have been.
Finimize may be a good one if they do decide to crowdfund. I think I remember them saying it was an option but Iām not sure. Iām not the biggest fan of their app.
Yeah Finimize would be interesting. My theory is that theyāve launched the app in order to create a more flexible channel for them to use to offer services which they can make money from. But I donāt like chatbot interfaces in general & Iām struggling with theirs so far. They have a great brand though & I really like the way the content is written so Iām curious to see what they do next. Side note - I didnāt realise that Passion Capital have invested in them already.
Iām really excited about Paystack too, although I only heard about them when they raised that new round. They must be doing something right if theyāre only processing Ā£20m of payments each month & theyāve attracted Stripeās (one of my favourite tech companies) attention! They may not be the first to do this but I love the idea of enabling users to make payments online from mobile money services like M-Pesa. I expect thatās a great user experience if youāve never been able to do that before.
I liked the idea and look of PensionBee, would consider investing in it. I didnāt like that it only had a few managed funds (or rather: let me choose the Vanguard funds I want) and its fees. I think this means that what I actually want is some kind of pensionā¦ ādashboardā Or the Freetrade sipp.
1,150 Trustpilot reviews as of today, which will presumably be a fair bit smaller than the number of customers or wills because not everyone will bother leaving a review.
Iām actually surprised that Finimize hasnāt considered the crowdfunding route yet as I feel a community of investors would be really beneficial given their proposition and brand etc. Also with Passion Capital on board they could attest how positive a community has been for Monzo.
Oh my goodness, just got an email 4 years later asking if i want to pre register for crowdfunding in Farewilll along with their million other customers.
I would be sooo excited 4 years ago, but in 2022 i am so disillusioned with crowdfunding (the fees, the lies, and the slow or no exits) and whatever the valuation is i think id feel robbed of 4 or 5 years of gains.
Will be having a very close look at the pitch and valuation before deciding whether to pass it up.
Or the Freetrade sipp.