The Mighty Society packaging looks a lot more attractive. But what’s to stop alpro releasing a pea drink and eating your lunch after you’ve proven a market exists? I’d have to try it first, because I once had some vegan thing with blocks of pea protein pretending to be chicken, and it was fucking disgusting.
While I think I will stay away from crowdcube/seeders for the foreseeable… Really appreciate the write-ups! Such a good addition to the forum. Looking forward to the website/forum/newsletter
A final point I would make would be there isn’t just space for one Pea Milk. The Oat milk industry is a good example of this – in the UK alone Oat Milk is up in growth 40% Year on Year – however if you go in to any café or Retailer in the UK you will find a number of different brands beyond the leader (Oatly). Pea Milk is exciting because there is scope for comparable growth and we are currently the UK’s number one Pea Milk (and intend to capitalise on this with our upcoming expansion in distribution and range). In all honesty if Ripple come to the UK anytime soon it will provide a halo effect on consumer awareness and education (likely meaning more shelf space in stores for Pea Milk!). We are however confident in our own plans for distribution and expansion over the next few years regardless and are looking forward to what the next six months of growth are going to bring.
Bnext have just announced a drag along clause in their legal review sent out to investors which wasn’t state prior to investment:
Currently, the drag-along clause states that A+ shareholders may approve, with a simple majority of their votes, that all remaining shareholders have to sell a number of shares equal to the pro-rata amount to their stake in the share capital of the Company, in the same terms and conditions of the shareholder that received the offer that triggered the drag-along if the company’s valuation is ≥€22m.
After the completion of this capital raise, A+ shareholders will own approximately 50% of the share capital and this drag-along clause could be approved with 25% of the total voting rights of the Company.
This would imply that, in this scenario, the investor within Crowdcube Nominees could be forced to sell its shares at a lower price per share than the one of the current investment round.
Bnext is currently negotiating with its shareholders to raise the Company’s valuation in this drag-along clause to €80m (instead of €22m). Please, be advised that in the event of no further communication from Crowdcube this clause will remain unchanged and A+ shareholders will keep their right to use the drag-along clause if the offer received is equal or higher than €22m.
This is just poor practice. The process should be halted until they have clarity on whether it can be changed unless this is just lip service and there is no chance the policy will be reviewed.
Bnext is an outrage. Crowdfunders are paying a higher price than the institutional investors, who retain control and sit above you in the pref stack - so they could force you to sell at a loss whilst they make a profit.
I don’t know the amount they closed at, though I do have a “last chance to invest” email from crowdcube sent 11 days ago and this said they had £2.853m.
Hope it goes to zero so that they can know that your backers no matter the amount they put in your vision are together with you in it and are not less than institutional investors.
So far, just 37 people have pulled out since around 10am today, so less than 1% of all investors. The amount of money pulled out is 2.08%, which is still a small dent.
There seems to be a lot of Spanish first time investors (In Crowdcube and crowdfunding in general) in BNext, so many people is confused (I’m one of them ) and some are asking how they can cancel the investment.
BNext is claiming the drag along clause is common practice in crowdfunding.
I haven’t withdrawn my investment yet, but I will do it shortly.
I guess it comes down to what sort of value you think BNext will end up having at exit. If it can survive early acquisition attempts and the credit market stays strong it should quite easily surpass price expectations in the drag along (drag down).
That said it’s all theoretical because not many (if any) Fintechs have actually exited, so there’s no acid test of value ATM.
) and some are asking how they can cancel the investment.