Amidst rumours (still to be confirmed) that yet another 2015 success story has come off the rails, Crowdcube have announced Simon Williams as thier new Chairman.
Williams has a a tack record with finance, mainly big finance and certainly has the brains to change Crowdcube. Whether he has the time given his already top heavy commitments to Lending Club and Nerdwallet to name just two, is another matter. His initial comments to Business Insider suggest that he has little idea of the trouble the company is in.
It looks to us to be a PR move, which will hardly come as a surprise. Williams is an investor in Crowdcube so may have decided it was time to get stuck in before it all goes tits up. Crowdcube now have an enviable entourage of sophisticated investors and advisers which under normal circumstances should take any company somewhere.
However is it all a little too late? Only the next 18 months will tell. Crowdcube's PR has promised exceptional deals for 2017, but then they did that in 2015. The very heavy weight of so many failed or fast failing, poorly thought through businesses, that have funded via this platform in their race to scale, may well end up dragging Crowdcube to the bottom along with its glamorous backers.
Williams has probably realised that his diverse portfolio of s**t companies is going down the pan - check out this article on Lending Club https://www.ft.com/content/d61607be-93b8-11e6-a1dc-bdf38d484582
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