Megathread - Crowdfunding

I was so confused reading that when I got the email - had to re-read it multiple times to make sure I was reading it correctly, absolutely baffles me.

Seems like they used an online Bullshit-Generator. Awful that some people will invest in thisā€¦

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I also saw this and itā€™s the worst pitch Iā€™ve ever seen.

From a quick scan the idea was wisdom of the crowds (from hundreds of people) would outperform the market.

Yes, thatā€™s the same market that already reflects all the wisdom of every single market participantā€¦

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Iā€™m thinking of studying the tarot myself and then setting myself up as a market predictor.

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Some inspirations for future crowdfunding campaigns

eFoldi now closed to further investment after reaching Ā£570k.

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There is many, many things wrong with that pitch (Drop Drinks), and Iā€™d give it 5% chance max of ever returning a penny to investors.

They need to 1) self-fund or 2) acquire an angel until they have deals signed and wholesale/retrailer distribution in place. They are raising far too early with very little skin in the game.

The valuation is bonkers. The equity offered is bonkers. Theyā€™ve sold 10k units in 2 years and reckon itā€™s worth Ā£3m. At Ā£2/unit theyā€™ve generated 20k revenue in two years and thatā€™s a pricy drink to put in a market dominated by ~Ā£1 drinks. This thing is worth maybe a tenth of their valuation if and only if they can get deals signed and maintained for over one year (deal resigned after one year on strong retail sales).

ā€œExecute a go-to-market strategyā€ Tremendously difficult to get right, and a huge slog. Costly if they want this to live more than the length of the campaign. Definitely not hiring as well, that 80k isnā€™t going to last.

Summary? Steer clear. Raising far too early, on a ridiculous valuation that will - even if the company sees some success - never be reached in an exit. Everything wrong with crowdfunding going on in here tbh.

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Iā€™m in their Access EIS fund. About to start deploying capital shortly, so thatā€™ll be interesting.

As Piggy said - their customer service is downright awful, donā€™t expect responses to emails. That said, they run a small ship to keep costs down, canā€™t have everything.

Agree with most of this. After getting access to the investor deck. They expect to make Ā£1.2m in 19/20. Which assumes the 300k orders come through too.
Checking the ingredients, itā€™s mostly sugar which is getting less demand than healthy alternatives in the RTD market.
11 years NPD is a long time, growth has been organic and there is a list of marketing channels in the deck but not much more substance on how to build further brand awareness.

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Similar name - Big Drop - but hopefully much more interesting pitch. Have been impressed with the quality of their beers and impressed with the distribution that they have already achievedā€¦ pre-register hereā€¦ Big Drop Brewing Co | EIS Crowdfunding Campaign | Seedrs

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Iā€™m based California now and have been investing in a few of the Wefunder opportunities over the past year. It certainly feels that the vetting process is more robust than the many investments I made via crowdcube. I guess I will find out just how good that vetting process really is over the months / years ahead. Mainly invested in consumer goods and tech so far. The scale and porential upside is immense. Here in the US there are no upfront tax benefits but some capital gains exemptions upon successful exit (hereā€™s hoping one day I actually get to test this). Overall Iā€™d say the UK is extremely advanced w crowdfunding vs US, but it is quickly ramping up here.

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Any big updates @anon1435622?

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Tropicfeel crowdfunding

Ofcourse :wink: Writing one up to release the next few days, stay tuned :slight_smile:

Welcome to the community! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Thanks for the heads up :+1: Beat me to it haha :sweat_smile: :rofl:

Loving the discussion/analysis going on here, so thanks everyone for the insights, makes for interesting reading :blush:

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Has anyone heard or used Axiafunder ? It is similar to Buford capital and would doing crowdfunding in few months via Seedrs.

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@tinku333
Ah, beat me to it again, but yes, heard about it. Been following the company a while, actually. Did you manage to get the pitch deck? Quite a detailed, interesting read; very impressive how their cases are yielding ~40% IRR.

Thereā€™s actually a round going on right now that will be at a ~20% discount to the upcoming Seedrs round.

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Yep it is very detailed and valuation seems to be reasonable.

Yep but minimum investment is Ā£3K+. Somehow it is a difficult decision as in this private round I need to do Due diligence whereas on Seedrs it is done by them as well benefit of Seconadary market so still weighing if I need to participate in current round or via seedrs

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Awesome, thanks!

Is it possible to find out more information for this round?

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A company I have been following recently is Fronted - a start-up based around deposit financing for renters.

Website / TechCrunch Article

The three founders are ex-Monzo, Apple and Bud, therefore appears to be a strong team. Given the Monzo link I was interested to see whether they would go the crowdfunding route and Iā€™ve just seen the following tweet this evening from one of the founders:

šŸšØAttentionšŸšØ

Looking for more testers for @getfronted! If you help at this crucial stage we will...

āœ…Give you a #SneakPeek at the product
āœ…Be able to solve a *big* problem for #renters
āœ…... show you the secret back door for our #crowdfunding šŸ¤«

ā€” Jamie Campbell (@JCtheOriginal) January 14, 2020
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Canā€™t wait to see how these guys get on, very very strong team, would be nice to get in on an early round :eyes: