Hello everyone!
I am a PhD researcher and I am conducting a survey on equity crowdfunding investors and ex-investors on platforms from the UK. The survey regards your experience with equity crowdfunding before and after the investments made, with the aim to improve investors’ experience.
If you belong to the crowd, please spare 5 min to compile the survey, your experience really matters and it would be an incredible help, we know too little about what goes on with equity crowdfunding from the investors’ point of view.
I will personally share the results of the study with all the participants!
Also please share the link with other investors if you can, the more answers collected, the higher the quality of the research! Thank you!
PS Sorry for the re-post, my previous account was deleted, the administration seems to know nothing about it and there was no problem with the post, which was receiving interest, so I’m writing again.
I finally filled in the survey- better late than never I hope
A few comments (I might also email).
Yes, I am an Ex-Equity Crowdfunding Investor on UK platforms (I have stopped investing)
I selected this option as I haven’t been investing seriously recently. A big reason for cutting down was the amount of time for DD I did. Now I check every few weeks and just invest a fun sized amount if I like the general goals. Last investment was eargym in Jan.
How much capital do/did you usually invest per ECF investment (£)?
Caveat to my answer- I have quite a few where I only invested the minimum (£10-£15) because I was interested and enthusiastic about the idea but couldn’t commit funds for some reason.
Many of the pitches I am drawn to require several years of development before getting a mature product- they’ll be back for more money and I’ll have the opportunity to invest later if they’ve made good progress.
For startups with unproven teams I like to see how they treat investors.
I believe there’s a serious gap in the pitch or team but I’m enthusiastic about their vision and want to follow their updates.
One time I made the minimum investment for a pitch that I had concluded was intentionally misleading. Did it for the lolz and haven’t been disappointed. Love getting their updates about how they’ve hired someone new or got new premises etc… while making zero progress on their moonshot (or even visible effort towards it)
High platform fees
I don’t mind fees per se. However, I selected this because I became unhappy with the asymmetry in the rewards for CrowdCube (where they get a cut for successful exit but no downside) vs investors. Fees should also be judged relative to the level of basic DD the platform does. With CC’s current incentive structure there’s no penalty promoting junk pitches but also they get a nice sweetener for the success stories.
Reasons for investing
Your list was quite comprehensive! Some I hadn’t really thought of but do appeal. I selected most of them, which was probably not helpful… (sorry!)
At the beginning I invested partly as I wanted to understand the process and see successful pitches (because I was thinking of my own startup ideas).
Thank you so much for compiling the survey and for your clarifications, they really help and I’ll absolutely consider them when interpreting the results!!
