Freetrade's crowdfunding on 25th June at 11am 🎈

[adam]

Hey everyone

We’re crowdfunding again on Crowdcube 25th June!

Last time, overwhelming demand to invest in Freetrade took down the world’s leading crowdfunding platform, so we had to cut things short.

Now we’re back with a bigger round to give everyone a second chance.

Here’s the plan:

• The round will open in private mode for Freetrade customers between 8am - 12pm. We’ll send you a private link via in-app chat so you can invest before everyone else. You’ll be invited to invest as part of a particular batch, there’s more details about how this will work here.

• We’ll go live on Crowdcube for everyone else at 12 noon, 25th June.

• Our target is £1m, with overfunding capacity to £5m.

• We expect to have £3m EIS tax relief available for this round.

We’ll close the campaign once we hit our overfunding limit or we reach the 28 day campaign timespan.

In May, we raised £1m in 77 seconds. But who knows how fast things will go this time!

What to do now?

1. Make sure you’re signed up to the app with notifications turned on.

2. Make sure you’re signed up to Crowdcube early - seriously, don’t wait till the day.

3. Tell all your friends to do the same.

4. Wait for 11 am 25th June and get yourself some new Freetrade shares.

The pitch video, as well as the rewards, are pretty much the same as our 4th round. As before, the pitch deck will be available on Crowdcube once the round starts.

We’ll share updates about our plans for the crowdfunding round here and answer questions about our progress and future plans on the Crowdcube forum. Check out this post for answers to FAQs about this round.

I’ll also be going on a road trip with Viktor and some of the team to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds to meet the community up north and answer questions about on the round. It’ll be on the week beginning the 17th June. You can reserve your tickets for the events here.

If you have any general questions about this round, ask them here, but just so you know we can only discuss hard metrics on the Crowdcube forum!

[jazzersi (Simon)]

Looking forward to this. Hopefully will manage to get some sweet EIS but I am not especially optimistic haha.

[AJHY]

This is going to be big, I’d be surprised if the £3m EIS lasts past the first hour! 11am alarm is set!

[FreetradeToTheMoon (jaroslav r2)]

Lock and Load boys and girls, this is going to be “'UUUgge”
3m EIS should be aplenty - early bird gets the worm. Lets benchmark load-test the crowdcube platform again.

[jazzersi (Simon)]

@adam

In May, we raised £1m in 77 seconds

@AJHY

I’d be surprised if the £3m EIS lasts past the first hour!

I’d be surpirsed if the the £3m lasts the first 10 minutes.

[judita]

Can you define “private link”? Will it be a unique link per app user, or the same link for everyone like last time?

How will you validate that people using the “private link” in the private mode are actually freetrade app users and not someone who got the link after someone inevitably leaks it?

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

@judita

Can you define “private link”? Will it be a unique link per app user, or the same link for everyone like last time?

It’ll be the same link for everyone but it won’t be possible to guess this time.

@judita

How will you validate that people using the “private link” in the private mode are actually freetrade app users and not someone who got the link after someone inevitably leaks it?

We won’t actually police this and technically you could share the link. But the fairest approach and best for everyone is to actually become a customer to get the link. Plus you’re a Freetrade customer which is its own reward!

[judita]

Well we saw how it went last time…
It’s not going to be a small group as soon as people start sharing the link on twitter, Facebook and wherever. I was really hoping that for this next round you’d be able to offer a truly private mode for existing users.
Here’s what I foresee: it’s going to be another scramble, no real private mode exclusively to freetrade users, more apologies from freetrade… and if we’re “lucky” crowdcube going down again. I guess good PR, but could be achieved without disappointing actual active investing users.

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

We honestly don’t think that it’ll have much of an impact, we definitely don’t want to cause Crowdcube to go down again

There’s more about the preparations they’ve made here: Crowdcube's readiness for the upcoming Freetrade crowdfunding round - #3 by Jonny

[Indigosteph (Stephanie Fuller)]

It’s great that we get another chance. I missed out last time, but I still don’t really get why you don’t make it truly private for a defined period of time. Can see this being the same as before tbh

[kenny (Kenny Grant)]

@adam

Make sure you’re signed up to Crowdcube early - seriously, don’t wait till the day.

Also make sure you’ve filled in the crowdcube questionnaires, and have your card details stored with them, so that you’re ready to invest. I think a few people were caught out by that last time.

[Pat]

Hi Adam, what if you are a non UK resident and can’t use the app yet? I am a round 3 and round 4 investor, would love to use the app, but have to be patient (The Netherlands)… Is there any way to provide the early access link to current investors in same situation like me?

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

Not to worry, if you’re listed on our shareholders register as a non-UK resident then we’ll send you an email with the link to access the page during private mode

If you’re an existing investor and still have any concerns about accessing the page, please just send an email over to Adam.

[Pat]

Thanks Alex, that is great!

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

Yes they can

[tbowditch]

Will this be classed as “Round 5”, then?

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

That’s right!

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Rollingskies]

Is the share price the same?
Edit I see elsewhere its slightly different

[kai]

Will we get Investor R5 badge?

[Freetrade_Team1 (Freetrade_Team)]

Yes we’ll give out R5 badges too