Anyone looked at TaxScouts on Crowdcube.
Interesting business and VC backed but looks like tough to scale with high customer acquisition costs.
Any thoughts ?
Anyone fancy a slice 
of the action?
Just received an investor update from Emma. Couldnāt help but feel that they are trying to do everything and not having a clear niche. Even their LinkedIn account posts lots of stuff not even relevant to their business at all.
Iām starting to feel that I may have made a wrong decision in investing in them 
.
Would be great if someone (not Edoardo or anyone from Emma pls) could tell me itās the opposite and why Emma is still a good investment 
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This is sort of my feeling as well unfortunately. As someone who doesnāt have a particularly high disposable income, what attracted me to them originally was the the premise of saving money and budgeting, but with the gating of potentially useful features behind paid subscriptions, they seem to be attempting to target people who donāt actually need it.
I like the app and do find useful, but with the potential increases in energy fees, inflation and other general costs it does feel like they are sidelining people on more modest incomes. I really hope this isnāt the case, but that is what it feels like unfortunately.
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Yes am looking at that now, first glance it ticks all the boxes, Octopus backing, reasonable motivation to pursue crowdfunding (basically a bridge round and Octopus is contributing), sticky platform, reasonably scalable (not like pure software though, but good enough), seemingly adds customer value, team with good credentials.
Main questions for me are in understanding how this exactly adds value, total market size, digging into the team further and traction. Valuation seems full too, at 17,5x LTM revenue and 7,5x NTM revenueā¦ Will update later
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Just an observation about Crowdfunding as Iāve pivoted in my approach recently and would appreciate thoughts.
1: Iāve historically invested almost exclusively through Seedrs and Crowdcube, About 50 investments from Ā£5K down to Ā£100. If, and itās a big if, I was to get full current value against their valuations Iād have a 4x return from the past five years Iāve been doing this. (Freetrade, Monzo, Bird and Blend make up 75% of that return). I clearly wonāt get all of that but theyāre also still growing so will be interested to see where I end up. It comes with its own fears, what if Freetrade goes to nothing, what if Monzo goes to nothingā¦
2: I read Jason Calacanisā book over Christmas where his main thesis is that your investments should be in Silicon Valley almost exclusively to get the outsize returns we would all like. (Iām not looking for a critique of this, the book is compelling on why this is the case.)
3: I would add that I believe UK fintech can also give outsize returns, although the time of cheap valuations may be behind us.
4: So my thesis is as follows:
a) in the UK continue to invest almost exclusively in Fintechs unless something special turns up
b) start loitering around US crowdfunding sites with a view to try and get Silicon Valley based startups. Iāve been accepted into a good syndicate and, I have to say, the deal flow is really exciting me already.
So those are my thoughts. Iām looking for outsize returns and think that focusing in on these two areas Iām more likely to hit them. That means being strict with myself about opportunities outside these areas which will be really difficult.
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Good post 
Would appreciate you sharing any good opportunities as you are seeing them 
and are you willing to share details on the syndicate? ATB 
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Iāve sometimes taken a slightly different tack to what Iāve done on crowdfunding / early stage investments.
My focus has often been on the impact - Ć.e. Drug company with focus on COPD, PedalMe with their focus on pollution (also makes business sense), etc. so trying to blend the two, returns and impact. In the case of Freetrade Ć like the focus on the customer and aligning the interest of bothā¦
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I totally get that and agree. Nothing wrong with a bit of Conscious Capitalism
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Hereās an interesting one for you. Serious heavy hitting founder (match.com 
). Many parallel opportunitiesā¦.
I like that itās a platform and not a capital intensive business reliant on stocking the items them selves
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Greta post but what are the best US crowdfunding places to go to?
Very good! So who would they be? TBH I havenāt looked much further than CC but have downloaded Primarybid so now thinking I need a bit more info on what is best for these nice S.Valley stocks 
Thatās exactly what my thoughts were when I first saw it but then realised it is a platform and a serious heavy hitting founder. Going to continue to do some digging on this one for the next few daysā¦
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Iāll keep āem coming and make sure I lift my game to only bring the good ones 
@Big-g The main ones are Wefunder, SeedInvest, Republic and Start Engine. I mainly use Wefunder (youāll really need to filter through the rubbish though but there are some really good ones) and SeedInvest. Check out this slide I posted a few weeks ago (top graph Wefunder specific, second graph CF landscape)
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Looks like I need to do some damage control on my reputationā¦
Iāve turned over a new leaf for 2022! No more 
HOOVES OF DOOM
I will only be applying my skills and knowledge to picking the finest growth stocks AND Iām going to win the FT Double Bagger competition this year with my well informed choice of Twitter. Just wait and see.
Olā 
DIAMOND HOOVES is back in the game. Iām like the bovine Pied Piper, follow me to massive wealth!
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Fully agree with your approach of U.K. fintechs plus valley firms.
Like you, have been only doing first part of that equation as yet and actively looking to get spend more time on the latter.
Could you share the name of the syndicate? How does one go about becoming a member. Ofcourse there are the US crowdfund platform but think a syndicate would bring better quality deal flow.
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Most syndicates are effectively private clubs. You need to know someone who is a member, and who will vouch for you. Thatās normally tough, as most of us donāt talk about investing habits in the real world and donāt share āclub membershipā details with friends. Itās like the first rule of Fight Club.
So you have to ask around within your network.
Even then, most syndicates want to know how you add value beyond just ādumb capitalā - i.e. can you help with financial or strategic analysis, how strong is your own network, and will you bring deal flow? Some have interviewing processes and vote for admission.
I suggest starting with https://angel.co/ and signing-up as an investor, then applying to join some of their syndicates. You will learn a lot just from being a node amidst all the signal flow. But always do your own dispassionate research. Good luck!
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On TaxScout (raising on Crowdcube):
What I like;
- Team has strong backgrounds and has a decent size.
- Multiple prominent VCs and angels backing them.
- CEO is investing GBP 200k on his own account.
- Good traction (>2x p.a. revenue/customers).
- Probably quite sticky, customers really like it (4.9 stars out of 2500 reviews Trustpilot, NPS >80).
- CEO very responsive.
What I like less;
- Certified accountants; scaling requires accountants, they seem to like pay them ~50 GBP per filing (GBP 119 price, 50% COGS, 80% of that they mentioned in a post), more of an unknown thing than directly a problem because donāt really have insight whether this is attractive. Company said accountants provide the service as a side income stream.
- Unit economics: see discussions on Crowdcube, they spend alot to acquire customers, for the business model to be viable, products needs to be pretty sticky in order to have LTV > CAC.
- Valuation: to me, valuation implies this is mostly a bet on their internationalization strategy, UK alone probably wonāt make the bar in terms of risk/reward at the price
All in all, I think its a good quality deal, Iām leaning towards investing personally, mostly due to the VC support and great customer feedback.
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