Megathread - Crowdfunding

Haha, yeahā€¦ thatā€™s me.

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I won Ā£1.50 at 20:20 as well :rofl: Not bad seeing as I havenā€™t even added any money yet.

Iā€™m wondering if everyone wins something to get you hooked

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Yeah, Iā€™m guessing that but if it is secure as they claim then a decent little app for a small saving with a chance of winning the big lotto weekly.

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Funny game, but handing out free money doesnt seem like a solid business model / will be costly to scaleā€¦

Freetrade have been handing out free shares worth tens of thousands a week for years. Itā€™s a cheap way to scale providing you can retain the people.

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Theres instances where it can work & not fully aware of how Freetrade did it, but there I think it was limited to one instance only where you would get a random share? In that case, I see that as customer acquisition costs, thats a one off (not sure whether they handed out more on occasions though). In this case, the app seems to promise a constant flow of rewards, which affects net revenue (revenue per customer - prizes per customer); Revolut did GBP 15 per customer of revenue in 2020 and is still burning money. With an even lower number there (subtracting the wins per person) Iā€™m just not sure how they can sustain the banking features and scale. Maybe by adding different revenue sources, like pure gaming, they can add banking services on top of it. But in its current form I just donā€™t see how this is viable, just my 2 cents :slight_smile:

Have fun spinning btw :smiley:

Hereā€™s one Iā€™ve been looking at for the past couple of days. It gets 4.4 / 5 rating on KingsCrowd. What do you think? You really can have it all in the palm of your hand :raised_hand:t3::ok_hand:t3::rofl: Seriously though right now it has me very intrigued and potential could be enormousā€¦.

PS howā€™s spin the wheel going :lollipop::money_mouth_face::rofl:

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First look of it is interesting indeed, I lived in China for a bit and there some supermarkets and vending machine had a similar mechanism with Alipay (face recognition though). In those stores, most people use that feature, maybe this gives some insight that itā€™ll add value for the consumer. Iā€™m going to do some digging on this one too

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I remember these guys did something similar-ish using veins pattern from your hand. I think they crowdfunded in the past as well.

Looking for your 2nd TrustStamp ;o)

Ha! Indeed and interestingly Trust Stamp are quoted as one of their customers :ok_hand:t3:

Interesting. Thereā€™s going to be a huge amount of opportunities in this space. The only thing about FinGo that I donā€™t like is that it looks like it isnā€™t contactlessā€¦.

Will have to take a look. Am hoping that Trust Stamp can meet the Nasdaq requirements and start to trade there. They havenā€™t been able to break the $4 mark much and the current issues with growth stocks wonā€™t help.

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Anyone looked at TaxScouts on Crowdcube.

Interesting business and VC backed but looks like tough to scale with high customer acquisition costs.

Any thoughts ?

Anyone fancy a slice :pizza: of the action?

https://wefunder.com/papa.johns.europe

Just received an investor update from Emma. Couldnā€™t help but feel that they are trying to do everything and not having a clear niche. Even their LinkedIn account posts lots of stuff not even relevant to their business at all.

Iā€™m starting to feel that I may have made a wrong decision in investing in them :pensive:.

Would be great if someone (not Edoardo or anyone from Emma pls) could tell me itā€™s the opposite and why Emma is still a good investment :grin:

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This is sort of my feeling as well unfortunately. As someone who doesnā€™t have a particularly high disposable income, what attracted me to them originally was the the premise of saving money and budgeting, but with the gating of potentially useful features behind paid subscriptions, they seem to be attempting to target people who donā€™t actually need it.

I like the app and do find useful, but with the potential increases in energy fees, inflation and other general costs it does feel like they are sidelining people on more modest incomes. I really hope this isnā€™t the case, but that is what it feels like unfortunately.

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Yes am looking at that now, first glance it ticks all the boxes, Octopus backing, reasonable motivation to pursue crowdfunding (basically a bridge round and Octopus is contributing), sticky platform, reasonably scalable (not like pure software though, but good enough), seemingly adds customer value, team with good credentials.

Main questions for me are in understanding how this exactly adds value, total market size, digging into the team further and traction. Valuation seems full too, at 17,5x LTM revenue and 7,5x NTM revenueā€¦ Will update later

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Just an observation about Crowdfunding as Iā€™ve pivoted in my approach recently and would appreciate thoughts.

1: Iā€™ve historically invested almost exclusively through Seedrs and Crowdcube, About 50 investments from Ā£5K down to Ā£100. If, and itā€™s a big if, I was to get full current value against their valuations Iā€™d have a 4x return from the past five years Iā€™ve been doing this. (Freetrade, Monzo, Bird and Blend make up 75% of that return). I clearly wonā€™t get all of that but theyā€™re also still growing so will be interested to see where I end up. It comes with its own fears, what if Freetrade goes to nothing, what if Monzo goes to nothingā€¦
2: I read Jason Calacanisā€™ book over Christmas where his main thesis is that your investments should be in Silicon Valley almost exclusively to get the outsize returns we would all like. (Iā€™m not looking for a critique of this, the book is compelling on why this is the case.)
3: I would add that I believe UK fintech can also give outsize returns, although the time of cheap valuations may be behind us.
4: So my thesis is as follows:
a) in the UK continue to invest almost exclusively in Fintechs unless something special turns up
b) start loitering around US crowdfunding sites with a view to try and get Silicon Valley based startups. Iā€™ve been accepted into a good syndicate and, I have to say, the deal flow is really exciting me already.

So those are my thoughts. Iā€™m looking for outsize returns and think that focusing in on these two areas Iā€™m more likely to hit them. That means being strict with myself about opportunities outside these areas which will be really difficult.

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