Megathread - Crowdfunding

And Chip doing another rate increaseā€¦ really going ham here.

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A few interesting opportunities spotted on CC and Seedrs at the moment:

Splint Invest - fractional alternative asset investing - has a fair amount of competition and more established US companies will likely be entering Europe sooner than later, but having played around with RallyRd, Vint & Masterworks, Iā€™m hugely impressed with their platform and business model. Itā€™s the best fractional alternative assets investing company Iā€™ve seen to date. Only thing I donā€™t like is their valuation, I think itā€™s about double FMV.

Ortharize - reward your employees for being frugal with business travel - pretty compelling proposition and only seem to have competitor with similar offering. I know Iā€™d happily fly in economy if I pocketed even 30% of the fare difference for business flights. Similarly happy to stay in a small establishment rather than a 5 star hotel.

Silicon Roundabout Ventures LP - new deep tech fund launched by a solo GP who seems well connected & with an exciting vision. No EIS, but I like it a lot. Only available for sophisticated/HNWI investors.

Anyone have any thoughts on the above? Would love some contrasting opinions.

Anyone investing in Invest Engine? Just got the below.

Hi Gary,

Weā€™re excited to announce that our second crowdfunding campaign will launch very soon on Crowdcube.

Thanks to your support, last year we raised Ā£1.3m in just 7 days and as an existing InvestEngine shareholder, we wanted to give you the ability to secure exclusive access to our latest round ahead of everyone else.

Simply register your interest and youā€™ll be amongst the first to know when our crowdfund is live!

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Will be interesting to see what the valuation is this time around. Itā€™s been a hard period for the market. Seems like investengine is ticking away nicely though.

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Gravitricity Fundraising Plan

We are working hard on our institutional investment round and as you know we have appointed corporate finance specialist Gneiss Energy to lead the drive. The core target of the Institutional Round is investment from one or more strategic investors totalling up to Ā£40m to finance three large scale projects:

a prototype gravity store in the UK (Project Beta)
a first-of-a-kind hydrogen storage demonstrator in the UK and
and a full-scale gravity storage plant in a disused mineshaft in the Czech Republic (Project A).

Conversations are well underway with potential strategic investors including Energy Majors, Utilities, OEM manufacturers and our existing strategic partners, as well as financial investors focussed on the Energy Transition.

Initial conversations on that round are promising but it will inevitably take some months for that round to close. We have therefore decided to do a Ā£1 - 2m bridging round on Crowdcube to make sure weā€™re comfortable and can make progress technically during that fundraising process.

We are setting the Bridging Round up as an Advanced Subscription Agreement (ASA), offering a 20% discount on the Institutional Round valuation. This avoids fixing a valuation now and removes a potential bargaining chip that Institutional investors could use to keep the valuation low later in the year.

In order to make sure the ASA round qualifies for EIS relief the subscriptions would automatically convert to equity (Gravitricity shares) at a ā€˜fall-back dateā€™ six months following closure of the ASA, if the Institutional Round hasnā€™t already closed by then. The fall-back valuation will be Ā£25m, meaning advance subscriptions will automatically convert to equity at that pre-money valuation. Advance Assurance has been received from HMRC confirming that investment in this round will qualify for EIS relief.
At the moment we are speaking to existing high net worth shareholders about cornerstoning the Bridging Round. This would enable us to go live on Crowdcube with a reasonable proportion of the target already committed. If you are interested in committing Ā£25,000 or more to the ASA Bridging Round then please contact us via invest@gravitricity.com.

The team are planning for the Bridging Round to go live on Crowdcube towards the end of this month. It will initially go live only to existing Shareholders, enabling you to satisfy the pre-emption rights attached to your existing shareholding. (You may get a message about that directly from Crowdcube Nominees Ltd.) We very much hope that you will continue to support Gravitricity, by spreading the word once the raise is live and consider investing more yourself.

We will contact you again before it goes live with details of the upcoming bridging round and of course keep you informed when we have any major news relating to the institutional investment round.

Meanwhile, should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at gravitricity.com and remember that if you havenā€™t done so already, you can sign up to our newsletter.The next newsletter will cover progress in Czechia and some new additions to our Engineering Design team.

Finally, we would like to thank you for your continued interest and support.

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Not my field of expertise but canā€™t but help feel that this is never going to make any money, would love to know some engineers thoughts.

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Can you maybe elaborate a little. If wind farms can make money then Gravitricity can,they can produce electricity immediately no matter the weather AND also the shafts can store hydrogen,so two money streams!

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Some basic calculations on gravity storage:

Essentially, the energy stored per kg is really low. So you need something really heavy, moving through a long distance to store much energy. The equipment becomes bigger and more expensive to do this in comparison to other equivalent systems. So while it can work, I donā€™t see how it can compete with the alternatives.

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Article on CNN which validates the concept.

Gravity could solve renewable energyā€™s biggest problem

That would be great if Gravitricity could find a suitable testimonial as Energy Vault did.

EnergyVaultā€™s pictured solution with cranes is pretty much nonsensical, itā€™s been torn apart by pretty much every energy expert and engineer out there. The buildings idea is less ridiculous, but as mentioned by other posters, the energy density per kg is just too low.

The reason why Gravitricityā€™s idea is viable compared to EnergyVaultā€™s buildings is because they donā€™t have to build elevation, the mine shafts already exist.

Their problem though is that alternative energy storage solutions like new battery chemistries, compressed air and flywheels are rapidly reducing in price. So, while I think a study quotes a price of half li-ion, li-ion and alternatives keep getting cheaper. They can also go anywhere, which is a benefit to the grid that Gravitricity lacks (lower transmission costs/deferring capacity upgrades to the grid the key factor).

That said, all energy storage tech has pros and cons, and Gravitricity could well fit in to the mix especially due to the fact that it can cycle all day long and still last fifty years. I doubt theyā€™ll print money, but I wouldnā€™t count them out completely.

Hydrogen storage is also complex and will definitely be needed, so that idea definitely has potential.

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Thanks for your insight,I think it has better potential than flywheels,lasts longer as it has less moving pieces and is a lot easier to maintain. Time will tell,if they manage to raise the Ā£40 million then who knows?

@House have a read and educate yourself

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I did my argument a disservice by mentioning flywheels, you are correct! Itā€™s the other battery chemistries and other alternatives that are likely to be the winners here.
Agreed, I hope they can be successful! I own a small share.

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Oh wow, CNN Business said it would work? Damn, all my objections are just blown away.

A gravity based system can work. Indeed it does, thatā€™s what a dam is, thatā€™s what pumped hydro is. It doesnā€™t stop these crane based systems being ridiculous.

A flywheel system would have one moving part. The only way to have less moving parts than that is to have no moving parts. Compare that to the crane thing you linked.

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Thanks Juno. Another link. Luckily I already expensively educated myself. It means I can find information that can support or dispute a claim. And do some basic hand calculations so that I donā€™t have to rely on journalists.

Please could you add to the discussion by giving some simple numbers around typical energy density of potential flywheel based energy storage systems so we can compare them against the gravity based systems.

I mean technically gravity storage has zero moving parts while itā€™s storing energy

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Energy density when it comes to grid-scale storage is not really relevant. Does not matter if it fits in a room or a warehouse as long as it is superior for the price.

Relevant insofar as space or materials are expensive only.
Gravitricity is using disused mine shafts = almost free space. Materials a bit more expensive, of course.

Efficiency, LCOE, etc much more relevant.

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I think it will probably work locally. But itā€™s obviously limited by the availability of suitable shafts. And the amount of energy it can store isnā€™t going to make them a fortune. They might be able to make something small scale of it but I donā€™t think itā€™s going to make crowdfunders rich

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Great article :+1: Letā€™s leave it too the experts,shall we?

AND another
https://www.scotsman.com/business/edinburgh-based-gravitricity-lands-deal-with-infrastructure-major-paving-way-to-build-hundreds-of-hydrogen-stores-across-uk-3973808

There are 14,000 disused shafts!

How many are suitable and how much revenue can you generate from each one plus are they in suitable locations?