The New Craftsmen has just launched a £1m to £1.5m ECF campaign on Crowdbnk. Valued today at around £3.75m.
What they dont tell you is that this company has failed with flying colours to get even close to its 2014 Crowdcube raise projections. It was value then at £2.7m. Now that does not mean that it wont make you many millions when it sells for an eye watering sum in the predicted 2020 exit. It may well be that there is a perfectly good reason - projections are after all just that - projections of what we hope will happen. However simply ignoring this gap, which is a large one even by Crowdcube standards, is not really very helpful.
If we were investing we would want to know the figures used to sell equity in 2014. It seems to us to be a faily routine expectation that if you are investing in a management that made claims about their revenue only 2 years ago that you get to see how these projections turned out. Of course had the projections been met or exceeded we have little doubt the figures would be there for all to see.
Of course the hard working Crowdcube PR department will be fretting over whether to publish this news as good - ie'' New Cratftsmen shareholders have seen a fantastic increase in their investment'' or bad ie '' New Craftsmen yet another ex Crowdcube success that misses targets and then chooses another platfrom to raise more money on''. It's a tough one for them.
Crowdbnk come into the bracket of 'more serious' ECf platforms and claim on their site that they give you full access to all the information you need to make an investment decision.
We would like to disagree.
Equity Crowdfunding was intended to democratise investment in companies and be good for both the companies and investors. The continual use of selective information means it has done anything but. It's why we need a central regsister so that easy access to comprehensive information is available to all.
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