I have to admit that I’ve become a little fascinated by the Pavegen pitch on Crowdcube
It sounds a really interesting proposition - a ‘smart’ pavement for cities that turns generators when people walk across them, which in turns creates electricity for storage within batteries, to be used for lighting signage, whatever else …
They seem to be driving relatively decent revenue over the last 12 months with good partnerships in place at a global level and I’m impressed with the documentation they supplied and the team that they have in place.
Anyway, I guess I was just curious as to whether anyone come across/invested in them before? Or have experience in the Smart City industry, as it’s not something I typically know a lot about.
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I invested years ago, just £100. I thought they had become another zombie share but now I’m tempted to take a look and see how they are doing.
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Nice. Pretty well by the looks of it.
Have they already been on Crowdcube then when you last invested?
I think they did a separate raise for existing investors a year or so ago (I vaguely remember an email) but I didn’t take them up on the offer.
I take it (from your first post) that communication hasn’t been great then.
Like most crowdfunded companies Comms is always patchy, Monzo and Freetrade are exceptions. But to be honest I haven’t kept up with them so I couldn’t say for certain, though I think they do send annual updates which is nice.
I was watching the demo day and these guys seemed very interesting.
The data side of the business makes far more sense to me, I like the idea that footfall can be a source of power but I’ve seen other firms with the same idea. The data collection is what makes it more interesting in my mind.
I’m still a bit unsure how they will stay ahead of the competition. I worry the sense technology can be stand alone and the power tech other energy firms have their eye on. I guess maybe they are a prime target for a speedy acquisition.
I invested in their 2015 raise and have been impressed by their comms, a couple of updates a year with detailed update on projects completed and on the horizon, top-level data on finances and references to an anticipated exit by trade sale in the next few years. By far the best company I have invested in on Crowdcube as far as investor comms go including Crowdcube themselves (apart from Freetrade of course 
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I was sceptical of their pitch initially but interested in their product and they really seem to be doing well and I have a lot of respect for Laurence the CEO and inventor/founder who seems to do a fantastic job of selling the product and business (I see from their latest Crowdcube update that he will be at Downing Street again next week).
Personally, I am still debating whether to commit any more in this round only because I think I have enough high risk/early stage in my portfolio for my risk appetite but have been sending the link to friends and colleagues who missed out on the first round.
Full disclosure: Investor in Freetrade, Crowdcube and Pavegen… Obviously 
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My breakdown of this company and after having back and forth with the founder on Crowdcube. The guy is a great salesman and to a layperson the technology sounds all fancy and futuristic ‘energy and data from footsteps’.
As an engineer, this does not make any sense. Power generated from footsteps is a joke. Some guy on crowdcube did a rough calc: All of the footsteps on pavegen products to date is about 500,000,000, at 4 joules per footstep, that’s 556kwh. The average household uses 5,000kwh per year in the UK. Sooo all of the footsteps to date could power one house for about a month. The cost of the installs to date i would estimate is to a factor of a million pounds. At 15p per kwh in the UK, you could buy the same amount of electricity for… £83.40.
I’ve asked the guy 3 times how long the slabs/tiles take to become carbon neutral, i.e. produce at least as much energy as it takes to manufacture, transport them etc. My guess is that they will never create net energy. This is the minimum requirement that you would expect from an energy source.
Regarding the data, it’s a load of rubbish. Think what data you can collect from these tiles that coule not be collected from a way simpler pressure sensor on the floor or even a single camera with image recognition to track people, which is pretty standard technology these days.
The only value is in the ‘cool’ idea, which to be fair seems to be working well for the company. I do not see this as a potential investment with sound fundentals.
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