Iām curious why you are so keen to have your investment massively diluted by a VC, and why you think it will suddenly be easier to recruit engineers with a VC involved?
I donāt think Freetrade needs Ā£50M by the end of this year, and Iām not sure I want that much dilution. If the VC is an EIS fund (as has been suggested in the other thread) they canāt invest that much anyway
Iām curious why you are so keen to have your investment massively diluted by a VC
Donāt get that either certainly not the amounts being proposed. Theirās VC and thereās Private Equity. At that sort of money thats a large swathe at the current valuation if not nearly a full buyout???
Edit:If thereās a good deal on debt sure take a bit of VC debt. Not looking for the such high dilutionā¦ the extent which would be highly abnormal for a VC round
The way I see it is it will be diluted and multiply considerably or if Freetrade continue at such a slow pace my investment will be worth jack-s**t. I know they need to get the product right but not as slow as they are going itās ridiculous. Just the other day 4 companies in the USA started offering free share dealing. If they keep goi g at this pace without a massive injection of funding alongside the knowledge and expertise that comes with that then Iām afraid they will fail.
A couple of months ago Freetrade had a record breaking fundraising round on crowdcube, Itās barely cleared their bank account and you are asking for our equity to be cut in half already. I donāt think the competition is coming as fast as you think. Robinhood has been around for years in the states and only now are the legacy brokers responding. They arenāt showing much signs of going Live over here in the next few months. Revolutās offering sounds to me like a half assed feature for premium members only. Sounds like T212 is the nearest direct competitor at the moment. But there is room for more than one low cost stockbroker
Edit: Throwing money at it now wonāt necessarily get things done any faster
Also it seems to be recent investors who are complaining the most (going by the R5 next to your name and others) why did you invest a couple of months ago? did you check the business plans? and how much did you expect things to have changed by now?
Have a seat and take a deep breath. Are you not allowed to have an opinion on this forum without lots of angry people responding??? You donāt need to come across as the big āI Amā because you were fortunate enough to invest earlier. I stand by what I feel and think. Is that ok?? I think Freetrade are doing an amazing job just very very slowly lol Thatās my opinion OK???
Altria??? How long do you have to wait for the biggest companies in the USA to get onboard the Freetrade site. In my opinion that is a basic. Revolut is doing fractional shares and they only started a few weeks ago. They have over 7million customers since 2015 the same year Freetrade started??? Why is this?? With massive investment from who??? Yes VCās I rest my case.
Iām not angry, Sorry if it came across that way. I just donāt think throwing a huge amount of money at it now will make that much difference to the timeframe. And Iām confident Adam and Victor know better than any of us if a VC is needed at this stage
Sorry I thought you were a bit annoyed then. I just feel that the screw is tightening and the company are moving to slow. I know Adam and Viktor are good guys.
Unfair comparison, Revolut have raised $345M and valued at $1.70B in April 2018. Theyāre nearly a decacorn and are supposedly in talks with Softbank for a $500M round. Their first Seed Round was $4.91M so how do you expect FT to raise $50-60M on a Seed Round.
I agree with you Altria are a great company and Iāve been buying them recently, I understand the frustration there. I canāt buy any
Edit: This is FTās bread and butter not some sideshow of the business
The only comparison I was making was that both companies started in 2015 and has took plenty of VC funding and is now a unicorn and the other one hasnāt and is going as slow as a week in jail. Just to clarify,Iāve never been in prison lol
The Platform will be the Boom moment for Freetrade features, is that correct ?
Letās just enjoy waving our sparklers until the Platform is ready and the fireworks are let off left right and centre
Not long, actually. Keep an eye on a list dropping on your favourite social channel (incl. this) soon.
Depends on the definition of starting, but for context, weāve started the waitlist-controlled iOS-only beta on the 3rd Oct, and formally launched (removed the waitlist) in April this year.
I understand some dilution isnāt always a bad thing, but Ā£50-60M is more than the current valuation. That much dilution would more than cut our equity in half, and I donāt think thereās a case for doing that now, just after a successful crowdfunding raise