Chip over Ā£3m before going public! Having a good round it seems. 
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Any valuation cap?
Initially I was very excited by the concept of Altilium Metals, a start-up currently raising on Seedrs. Getting 95% of the rare minerals out of EV batteries has huge potential.
But the more I read their pitch, the more potential red flags I noticed.
In particular, how a company just two years old owns multiple mines in Indonesia, a hydrometallurgy factory in Bulgaria without any major backers or press coverage. With their three team members from the UK, Australia and Indonesia respectively.
Companies House puts their issued share capital at $93m!
What also set off further red flags was how their CEO, Kamran Mahdaviās experience is so vague. I followed this up and he has almost zero internet presence, no LinkedIn or anything which was getting alarm bells ringing for me.
His Companies House profile seems fine (a random role as a commodities trader for a wildlife charity the exception?). But turns out there are two Companies House profiles. Both the same DOB, almost certainly the same person:
Second companies house profile
With a whole bunch of dissolved companies. One of which, Atlantic Metals, was dissolved in 2013 and cost unsecured creditors Ā£3.6m, while he was at the company.
A bit more googling, and it turns out this company Atlantic Metals was formerly known as Alaska Metals, a firm implicated in some way in the $500m Talco aluminium scandal by Harvard-educated Australian journalist John Helmer in this post.
In that article, it also mentions that Ali Akhbar Mahdavi defrauded a buyer of lead ingots of $6m, which he was ordered to repay in 2002. Looking at Companies House, Ali Akhbar Mahdavi and Kamran Mahdavi (presumably family) were both directors of Alaska Metals from 2006-2011.
Anyway, past dodgy activity by connected persons, a failed firm and alleged implication in a big scandal does not necessarily mean that Altilium Metals is not a real ventureā¦ but I felt compelled to share my findings and am curious for fellow crowdfunding investorsā perspectives. I have shared this info with Seedrs, who got back to me outlining their due diligence charter and that they would investigate āin lineā with that charter.
Edit: I erred, the company has been around for two years.
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The unfortunate reality is that crowdfunding is rife with everything from misrepresentations to outright fraud and the platforms donāt care. The platforms have an incentive to onboard as many campaigns as possible. Thereās little you can do but post about it on the campaignās discussion forum on Seedrs (phrasing it so as not to be an accusation, but a sincere question) and hope other prospective investors will read the information you share. Unfortunately, even if you post a compelling argument and it causes nobody else to invest, Seedrs will still work with the company to ensure their campaign reaches the target and can close ā for example, Seedrs may extend the campaign or allow the founders to contribute to it. The only hope you really have is to convince individuals not to invest, and thus, save them from losing their money.
Essentially, once a campaign is created, the only realistic prospect of it being terminated is at the request of the company that created it.
You might find the following threads of interest:
š Crowdfunding graveyard ā°ļø and Megathread - Crowdfunding
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Hello Martin,
I am one of the co-founders and director at Altilium Metals, Dr Christian Marston. The other Director is Kamran Mahdavi.
I would like to respond to the āred flagsā raised in your post, just for avoidance of doubt and for clarification:
ā¢ The assets were purchased and have been held for over 10 years by the shareholders. September 2020 the assets were placed in a UK company Altilium Metals to focus on the circular economy supply of critical metals for the Energy Transition.
ā¢ The technology has already been proven at the laboratory scale under an 18-month research program at the University of Plymouth. The University confirmed the process can recover + 95 % of the critical metals.
ā¢ Financial statement FY 2021 was prepared by a third-party chartered accounting firm Clemence Hoar Cummings. The fixed asset value recorded by them is $93.245 million in accordance with UK accounting practices.
ā¢ Altilium Metals bank of record is Barclays in the UK. The directors go through extensive compliance checking for account opening and fully conforming. There are other cases of compliance checking on directors, including UK Government grants from Innovate UK.
ā¢ Mr Ali Akhbar Mahdavi is not an individual connected to the company in anyway and unrelated.
ā¢ Mr Kamran Mahdavi was a director at Atlantic Metals. This company was a service provider for commodity contracts in Alumina, Aluminium and Nickel.
ā¢ We cannot comment on the 2008 article referenced as we know of no such formal claim or action ever taking place basis this article.
ā¢ In regards to Atlantic Metals Mr Kamran Mahdavi had resigned in 2013 to pursue exploration and asset acquisition in technology metals. Post Mr Mahdavi period at the company and in 2014 voluntary liquidation was initiated by the directors and shareholders who took over the company and understand most of the creditors were inter company.
ā¢ Mr Kamran Mahdavi does not have a Linkedin page. Altilium Metals does has a Linkedin page which is active.
ā¢ Altilium Metals is compliant and conforming to the conditions set by Seedrs.
Thank you for your interest in Altilium Metals and the live crowdfunding campaign. Hope you join us on the journey to supply the technology metals needed for the UK energy transition from recycling end of life EV batteries and mine waste.
Thanks for your response. Iāve been reading more on this and itās really shocked me. It feels like thereās a gap in the two crowdfunding megathreads - crowdfund & graveyards, what do you think about a red flag megathread? I think it could be a helpful resource for noting due diligence findings or suspicions of currently raising businesses. I know Iāve invested in one or two businesses that I now wish I hadnāt, having redone due diligence.
Personally I donāt really feel comfortable posting on the Seedrs forum, as itās not something Iād want my emplyoyer or colleagues seeing.
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Hi Dr Marston
Thank you for taking the time to respond and explain some of my concerns.
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Regarding your financial statements, the ācalled up share capitalā is $93.3m (net assets similar amount, yes). This represents the level of investment by shareholders in the company, not the value of the assets, is this a mistake?
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I never claimed that Mr Ali Akhbar Mahdavi is connected or related to the company, I claimed he is connected to the CEO. I have a hard time believing they are unrelated. Even if not, they were directors together at Atlantic Metals for many years.
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I was mistaken, Mr Kamran Mahdavi left Alaska Metals prior to a voluntary creditors liquidation due to an insolvency caused (per CH doc) by a customer failure in 2013. Who replaced Mr Kamran Mahdavi? Mr Ali Akhbar Mahdavi rejoined Alaska Metals after his departure in 2011. Hardly a change of control of the company. There are also no accounts for 2012 or 2013 filed, which indicates to me that the issues at the company were not restricted to the time period after Mr Kamran Mahdaviās directorship.
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I appreciate your noting that there have been various compliance checks of the directors. However, this does not allay my concerns about the leadership of the company. It remains the case that Kamran Mahdavi maintains an opaque internet presence, directed a business that became insolvent shortly after his departure, has two Companies House profiles (one with current ventures, one with dissolved companies), as well as his connection to Mr Ali Akhbar Mahdavi, who committed fraud in a previous venture. Not to mention the implication of Alaska Metals in a $500m scandal. That no formal claim or action took place is not the same thing as Alaska Metals having had no involvement in the scandal.
I do sincerely wish you well with your venture, it is important, but I canāt invest or encourage others to invest in a company where I do not have faith in the CEO to act ethically, based on the information available to me at this time.
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Iām curious as to whether Dr Marston is a Freetrade user and stumbled upon the post, or is the company just monitoring social media & forums for discussions on their company.
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Looks like accounting platform Coconut will also be raising via a CLN at some point next week. They seem to be doing better since changing their approach to target accountants rather than end users.
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I would assume someone read the concerns here and slipped into their Seedrs dmās asking for their response.
Following your post, I made an attempt to understand their questionable balance sheet. I remain skeptical of the valuation of the business, given the campaign describes the Hydrometallurgical plant based on how much it cost to build and not its value as an asset (which is prime number-fudging behaviour) but I reached out to their accountant and they shared some insight:
Given how egregious some crowdfunding companies are in the claims they make, I am actually a little more confident that Altilium Metals do genuinely have the assets they claim to have. Lying to the crowd is one thing, but lying to an accountant is quite another ā even if the accounts arenāt audited. I wouldnāt touch them as an investment opportunity, but Iād be surprised if they turn out to be fraudulent.
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You might have the wrong person, I have not invested in Cheeky Panda and was referring to Trustportal (wouldnāt touch cheeky panda with a bargepole) 
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That sounds very much like a Trump accountant explaining the valuations of the Trump Empire 
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Many crowdfunded fintechs are raising convertibles. Is this strategy for delaying downrounds really going to help in the long run?
Chipās round is one of the most complicated ones - ASA with voting and non-voting shares, depending on the invested amount.
Really interesting edition of the All-In podcast last week with Chamath basically saying, the boards of the businesses should just suck up a downround, get new cash in and survive long term rather than collapse because they run out of cash.
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Thanks 
for thisā¦I am also considering investing in TrustPortal this time, I missed out in 2021 and have been following them on CrowdCube for a year, they are very responsive, keep investors regularly updated and the new valuation seems realistic with 8 x multiple on actual revenues year to date (ie. They are using actuals not forecast like the majority)ā¦.
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Definitely worth investing in automation businesses at the moment, especially with UK EIS. The recession combined with the skills shortages and persistent UK productivity issues - Automation is the only way forward
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I have just seen a video launch by AWS that features TrustPortal they appear to be launching a collaboration with AWS this monthā¦ I will definitely be investing in this round!
See AWS video here, with TrustPortal CEO speaking on Connected Automation AWS Connected Automation - TrustPortal
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The TrustPortal funding round is currently in private mode, itās not open to the crowdcube community yet, just existing investors and those with the private link. Itās going very well so far, they are at 60% before opening up to the crowd.
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