A exit at 20% or more of the last rounds valuation round would mean preference shares don’t make a difference. (Based on a comment from the last round on CC).
Near £100m. We’re well past that. Bux was forced to sell at the trough and it was a bad outcome, FT avoided that possibility and now has the chance to continue building.
I agree that relying on a single company, especially private equity, would be unwise as part of a retirement plan.
Is Freetrade my sole investment for retirement? no, and when I first invested it formed only a tiny part of my strategy, in the beginning I got excited at the thought of doubling it, but over time and with enough hype from the company my investment in Freetrade reached almost £0.4 million so yes I started to revisit my expectations and began to get excited that I could reach my retirement goals earlier - then the £9.25 → £2.60 BS hit us like a train.
Do you know what gets me,I moaned my face off constantly,for years regarding the slow progress of this company,I got banned about 100 times because they didn’t like valid and just criticism. I wish Freetrade had proved me wrong,but unfortunately they proved me right.
They had everything in their lap,the momentum from the crowd investors was dynamite and they let it all slip away and we are where we are today,about 5 years behind where we should have been.
Everyman and his dog knew that we should have chose Ireland as our stepping stone into EEA. Can we have an amnesty for frustrated ex community members?
Thanks for the story Stephen it gives new people a better insight on how things work. I’m new to these terms. I’m also new to crowd funding and did it along with buying stocks etc in the same time frame just going along with it all and trying to take in what all of you have been saying and the trading vocabulary :).
It would be a shocker if yous all lost your money and didn’t get something out of it if freetrade contuines to do well.
Sorry if this is forward or you don’t want to say but how much did all you founding members have to buy in or were their different buy in amounts and at what share price?
All I remember reading is the article about anyone who put 18k into freetrade is looking at a hefty payout and I thought it was close to 800k or another article said will be millionaires. This was when The hype was up around the R7 crowd fund.
I know there was plus for life can’t remember if it was for 1k or 5k or this was different rounds.
I know their was merch as well and NFTs down the line.
Anyways thanks again was a good read and again hope their is an exit for you all.
I think the first two rounds were £1k for founding member, third was £5k and no idea after that. It gets you the badge and subscription-free for life.
I wish I was around at the time and understood markets abit and everything else because that’s what I have traded in freetrade just over 1k which could been at the start for plus for life lol.
Ofc I know you all put money in when it was just an idea and was that in crowdcube?
It was freetrades funding that made me aware of crowdcube.
I found the crowdcube pitch because I was looking for a free commission share trading app, and I stumbled across the round 2 Freetrade pitch. At the time I was paying over £10 per trade with Hargreaves lansdowne. I took a gamble and put a grand in to get the founder member status. The way I look at it It has already paid for itself if you add up all the commssion doing the same trades on HL would have cost. Although there wasn’t even an app then so it could easily have failed and I’d have lost the lot (well I’d have got a bit back via EIS I suppose). £1k was a big gamble when the chances of failure are that high.
