No news that freetrade is crowdfunding at the moment. But just because freetrade is the bees knees (impartial from here on, promise 
) doesnât mean you shouldnât do your due diligence when investing in them. Iâve tried to give a due diligence quick rundown, to save you making those calls/emails, looking through all those companies house filings, financials, community posts, etc. Iâve noticed some people are on the fence as to whether to invest, especially if theyâve invested before, so I thought this might be helpful. Please note I canât disclose non public (i.e. from the pitch deck) information, so iâve avoided explicit quotes of figures/statements. Thereâs more to come, especially on investment terms, please enjoy this first draft for now 
Full disclosure: Iâm twice-fold an investor in Freetrade, but no affiliations otherwise. Iâll try my best to still be impartial about the best neobroker on the planet. Whoops, starting now.
The Company
Iâm sure I dont have to tell you, but: Freetrade is a mobile-first, zero commision brokerage, challenging the high fees and god-awful user experiences of legacy brokers. They are ultimately democratising stock market investments by reducing the barrier/costs to entry and providing a millenial-friendly platform for investing.
Team
Doddsie is ex KPMG, a chartered accountant and financial analyst. He used to audit banks and brokerages, and advised on fintech M&A. Viktor is ex-google and is FTâs marketing braun. Crucially, he has experience scaling startups (Notey, in Hong Kong, from 2015-2017). and Ian Fuller is the head of engineering, ex-snap and Amazon talent. A strong team indeed.
Product
Review
The app is well designed, boasting designers from Deliveroo; It is simple and intuitive. Itâs got hella shoutouts on Trustpilot (>9/10) and the app/playstore (>4/5). Onboarding takes minutes, Orders are simple. Itâs a simple 4 digit pin to login. No drama. To those that havenât/canât use it, hereâs a screenshot from my tablet:
What I love most is app iteration is user-driven, with features priorities based on votes by the community. If you donât like something, make your voice heard - Itâs effectively made by investors, for investors.
Some criticism has come in the way of how you are automatically setup to make an instant trade, rather than a basic one, therefore charged a fee. Some have noted this is against the freetrade ethos, and constitutes a âdark patternâ. There has also been some criticism as to how often the app crashes, which I have experienced to a small degree.
Most criticism, though, is directed at the small range of stocks, a few hundred on the app despite the thousands in the stock universe. This is ultimately because Freetrade lists stocks via third parties. With the debut of the investment platform, these processes can then be done in-house.
Future developments
Freetradeâs product innovation has been unparalleled. Granted, the most exciting innovations are yet to be shipped. Highlights of freetrades public roadmap includes Premium accounts (Freetrade Alpha), fractional shares and SIPPs. They are set to be the first broker to offer EU fractional shares, having recently gained the necessary FCA permissions:
You might be aware these are coming up:
- The investment platform, the magic bullet that will allow a greater rate of stock additions
*âPortfolio insightsâ is also on the horizon, a portfolio analytical hub in-app, currently being tested by willing users:
Images taken from this freetrade users post
Youâre less likely to know about these:
- Autopilot, which will be an auto rebalancing, auto investing feature to maintain a chosen fixed allocation portfolio
And this is me speculating:
- In the most tongue-in-cheek way, Doddsie has hinted at Monzo integration in the future. This would capitalise on monzoâs 2 million customers (at time of writing), who are known fintech adopters - this therefore makes for an efficient customer acquisition channel.
- I expect limit orders, watchlists/virtual portfolios and after hours trading to be developed in the more distant future, given demand in the community. After hours trading I find particularly important, as it amplifies the freetradeâs democratic effect somewhat (potentially opening up investing to 9-5ers who donât invest as a day job). .
Achievements:
Growth
Freetrades landmark achievement is its growth. . They have reached ~40k users in well under a year, implying a weekly growth rate of 10-12% a week. By Sam Altmanâs (of Y combinator fame) standards, that is beyond excellent. There is evidence of a recent tail off (see images below);
Remember: download/user nos are vanity metrics, what matters is active users. FTâs definition of active is unknown in this case (one login? one trade? who knows)
The paid referral incentives are currently being tested, and this may well boulster growth. Even more impressive is that this growth has been organic - employing no sig. paid marketing channels as yet. One reason this works is that FTâs target demographic is relatively cheap to acquire, and will likely grow to be even more valuable customers over time (by building wealth). This has kept customer acquisition costs quite low. FT take alot of inspiration from Monzo in this regard, leveraging their engaged community to grow virally. For example, Monzo recognised crowdfunding goes beyond raising capital - it creates brand ambassadors who champion your product, effectively marketing youâre paid for! Crowdcube is currently getting 1.3m web visits per quarter. Note the spikes in googleâs search engine traffic for the query âfreetradeâ, coinciding with recent crowdfunding campaigns (iâve highlighted the May 2018 crowdfund spike, as itâs harder to see)
Challenges
Access to talent
Engineering talent: FT is an SaaS company (an app), and to build it up you need software engineers. They are the lifeblood of such a business. Unfortunately, British engineering talent is both scarce and expensive. At time of writing, there are seven open freetrade engineering positions, against a team of~20 developers. There is an increasing trend of outsourcing engineering -one of my portfolio companies (Urban Massage) did so with a 30-strong engineering team in Lithuania- though Doddsie ruled this approach out. Stock options are a great way for startups to appeal to engineers when competing with tech giants like Google and Apple, who canât be beaten on remuneration alone. You will have indirectly suffered from this talent shortage: if a stock you wanted was unavailable in FTâs stock library, its down to the pace of development of the fabled investment platform, which in turn depends on freetrades engineering muscle.
Business model
How does a zero commision stockbroker make money?
Well, If we look at Robinhood, their US competitor - they do it largely by payment for order flow (being paid to have their users trades executed by certain institutions), which is illegal in the UK, so this model is out for FT. So FT have chosen to make money from the interest on uninvested cash (which monetises basic account users, negating a free-rider problem somewhat), ISA fees, instant trades and premium account fees (Freetrade Alpha, which is due to launch in the near future). They also charge for currency conversion, but this fee is only enough to cover the third party costs involved.
Will all this revenue yield a profit? This is a major risk/uncertainty I canât answer. Freetradeâs tech stack ultimately means they can do things alot cheaper (e.g. onboarding, KYC checks) than legacy brokers; still, I doubt the margins will be as high as those HL or AJ Bell currently enjoy. Iâve found Freetradeâs forecasted margins quite optimistic (sorry guys!) and take it with a pinch of salt.
Why the competition might be a problem
FT have benefited from being largely uncompeted in Europe so far. Given Robinhoodâs success in the US, Several startups are due to come into the foray and capture the EU market, from atleast 2019 onwards. Note I have focussed on the mobile first, zero fee stock brokers. Platforms such as trading212 and Degiro exist, and are competitors, but not as direct competition as those below I feel. Competition is understandably a primary concern amongst investors:
Robinhood, the unicorn startup that caused this whole challenger broker frenzy. They began a hiring spree in early 2019 in anticipation of a UK launch. There have been frew developments since, and I note that they have not gained regulatory permission in the UK as yet. Furthermore, although they are extremely well funded their business model is effectively illegal in the UK. Moreover, their unethical approach very much so leaves a gap in the market for an ethical neobroker such as FT.
Revolut Wealth, Revolut Bankâs answer to Freetrade/Robinhood, will be launching in the near future. An ex-FT executive team member, Andre Mohammed, was fired by Doddsie (Adam Dodds, FT CEO) and joined Revolut thereafter to help build their zero commision broker. He still owns 3.5m shares in FTâŠ
Revolut have now tested their app with real money and have suggested a few hundred stocks on launch, so the development is very nearly complete it seems. They do not as yet have the regulatory permissions needed to be a brokerage. Theyâre app could be finished, with a 100k user waitlist (there isnât one, btw), but they canât start until they have FCA authorisation. Revolut have been dogged with bad press in light of FCA probes, etc. Their broker would likely still leave a gap in the market for the ethical, customer focussed broker like FT. Users also need a revolut account to partake, which may cause friction in acquiring customers. Lastly, they limit trades per month on basic accounts, which may further deter potential customers.
**BUX ** are an (ex) CFD broker that are investing heavily into a zero commision stock brokerage app. They are well funded (having recently closed a ~ÂŁ10m funding round and also launching in Western Europe. Definitely one to watch.
The incumbents/legacy brokers (e.g.Hargreaves Lansdown, HL) have yet to feel any competitive influence. When they do, we can app development. What they might struggle to do is compete with FTâs pricing, HL have an extremely high margin business, so there is room for price cuts, but not enough to give thins away for free. They have too much overhead and too inefficient tech stack to do this.
Why the competition might not be a problem
One absolutely beautiful fact about FT as an investment is the sector has a large barrier to entry: Regulation. For this reason, any competition cannot move as fast as it might like. This is partly why, in addition to starting over mid-development, Revolut have taken so long to develop their trading platform.
FT also have a first mover advantage in the UK/EU - basically a headstart. Right now they are the only zero commision brokerage in the UK/EU. When their arch rivals launch, FT will then be the only neo broker with 1000+ stocks, fractional shares, and ISAs. When theyâre competitors have these, theyâll still be the only neobroker with SIPPs, 3000 stocks, etc. And so on. This is a powerful, but not insurmountable, advantage.
Lastly, brokers traditionally havenât been a winner takes all market. In the UK alone, you have Hagreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell, Interactive investor, etc. This isnât a gaurantee neobrokers will go the same way; Monopolies do exist (Google - search engines, Facebook-social networks, etc), but this is atleast somewhat reassuring.
The investment
Valuation
The price of a business is just as important as - and separate to - the underlying business itself. I cannot stress this enough. If youâd somehow bought into Monzo at early stage in 2017, on a ridiculous ÂŁ10bn valuation, youâd still have made no money to this day, despite Monzo having gone from strength to strength. Conversely, as poor as the future performance of Woodfordâs equity income fund might be given his current crisis, if it was valued at ÂŁ1mn by the market (without changes to fundamentals), a massive discount to NAV, it is very likely to be undervalued and potentially a great investment.
Monzo was valued at ÂŁ85m pre-money, with 120k users. So freetrade is in the right ball park relatively speaking. Objectively speaking, however, I still believe equities are overpiced across the board, a symptom of a pro-risk market and fintech bullishness. This is not to say Freetrade wonât give you a decent ROI, but just that it may be partially eaten up by the valuation. Early stage businesses are notoriously tricky to value given their lack of cash flow ; the key, therefore, is to make sure you are rewarded for the risk youâre taking; the valuation must imply a forecast return commensurate to the risk your taking (i.e. at the very least, better than that from blue-chip stocks). If we take a forward looking (on forecasted revenue for this year, a risky valuation method)revenue multiple, Freetrade is incredibly expensive - more so than weswap or seedrs, for example. Revenue multiples are a weak valuation metric, and Freetrade has indeed grown remarkably, but FT is an expensive business in my opinion.
Potential return/market opportunity
iâm not going to say what FT will make, but what they could make. To do that, one needs to get a feel for the size of the addressable market. So: According to the FCA, in 2015 there were 11 million retail and private investors in the UK, with a combined ÂŁ1.2 trillion in AUM (i.e. invested). Whats key is that because freetrade democratises investing, they will likely expand the market, so the addressable market may well be even bigger than this. Only a small slither of the addressable market needs to be captured to provide a monstrous 30x VC-tier return,which is very good indeed.
Terms
The shares on offer are B shares, which carry no voting or pre-emption rights. Doddsie has put this down to corporate governance issues involved in too many A shares. Voting rights might seem unimportant, but they can prevent an unfair sale, for example. Remember that Andre Mohammed still has 3.5m potentially voting shares. The crowd own 52% of Freetrade, so they ought to have a bit of clout. Pre-emption rights are basically the right to invest in future rounds, preventing dilution.
Thanks for reading
Disclaimer: This is not investment/tax/financial advice, please carry out your own due diligence and consider the risks to capital before investing in freetrade. Opinions are my own.
N.B. I welcome criticism and feedback; iâm happy to edit this post on an ongoing basis to make sure itâs as good as it can be.
) at a similar stage. I wonder if , because FTâs community is more active, they might be more likely to refer?