Quite simply - if you do not want this sort of thing happening regularly, you need an independent platform that provides investors with the real information - not what the platform or company want you to hear. That platfrom is here at ECFBuzz. See https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ecf-buzz-the-crowd-investors-information-centre/x/19804529/
Macrebur's Seedrs campaign majored on the large investment from another road builder, Instarmac. Investors have now been told that that money is no longer available. How can that be right?
We have written a few times about this company -
http://fantasyequitycrowdfunding.blogspot.com/search?q=+macrebur
There were many questions left unanswered but now at least one of them has an outcome - albeit not the one investors were told about. The investment was for something like £1.8m - we are cautiously vague because the amount and the supplier were kept vague in the pitch. You can read about that in the other posts. There was a lot of vagueness.
To avoid this sort of thing, ECF Buzz will have a forum to allow investors to discuss with other like minded people, what they think or what they know. This will be totally independent from from the investing platforms, in this case Seedrs and the company. To date there has been nothing like this. ECFBuzz will also help to educate investors in what to look for in a good management team and what to avoid. Its library resource will cover all aspects of start up funding and investment. You simply shouldnt invest without it.
Time will tell but at the moment this looks like a plus for investors. It does leave the raise at £3M where the original target was £4M.
ReplyDeleteThe Instarmac loan note was a convertible on questionable terms. i.e. it would dilute investors as some future date or be repayable on demand. Instarmac will still be a strategic partner.
Toby seems very open and communicative.
In fact the number of threads of discussion might sometimes have given the impression of vagueness if you didn't follow all the threads and get the timeline.
One of the weaknesses of the Seedrs discussion forum is that it has no search facility. If you come to the forum late or have missed some messages, I find it is difficult to catch up.
This is probably why the same questions appear again and again in separate threads.
Disclosure: I'm an investor in both rounds. No other connection to Macrebur.
Caveat Emptor.
Regards
As you say time will tell. My impression is that the reason the same Qs kept being asked was because he didnt ever answer them. And importantly,IMO, this £1.8m was supposed to be secured according to many comments he made. He certainly has a few loyal followers.
ReplyDeleteRob, I think you cynicism about Macrebur is completely misguided. Toby has loyal followers because he has delivered on his promises to date. He stated multiple times that the instarmac investment hadn’t completed at the time of the pitch. Are you suggesting that they never had any intention of finalising the investment and it was all a ruse to trick would be investors?
ReplyDeleteECFBuzz will not be successful if you cannot differentiate campaigns which deliberately misinform from those which are run by genuine professionals trying to raise capital whilst running a growing business.
If you want to improve, I think a good starting point would be trying to set up an interview with the creator of the pitch you have taken exception to. You can ask them to clarify certain elements of the pitch that you aren’t happy with and they have a chance to answer openly rather than be subject to a witch hunt. Otherwise, it will struggle to have any credibility, as in my opinion investors would rather liaise directly with founders of a company to answer their questions, rather than someone who isn’t connected to the business & takes a generally cynical view of it.
I’d also like any new forum to have a focus on the success stories to date. I invested in Freetrade in March 2017 and they have made great strides in bringing fee free investing to the UK. Of course they aren’t profitable at present but what they have achieved to date has set the foundations for a successful business.
If you want to add real value to the crowdfunding world, you need to celebrate the good and castigate the bad - nobody likes to read consistently negative news and even when there is success you always put a negative spin on it (describing 4x returns as good but not carling for example).
Apologies if this is a bit of a ramble, I have wanted to comment in full for some time now & New Year’s Day seemed an appropriate time to do it.
Hi Tom and a very HNY to you and yours. You may not have seen all the stuff I have on file - unless you have followed equity CF for 8 years and kept records on over 600 funded companies. Macrebur is just one. Im not the only one to have doubts about the company. To give you a verified documented example of how we feel the CEO has misled investors (our opinion not a fact) he stated in the Seedrs Forum on 19 Sept that Pontaq, an Indian VC outfit, had already invested and that the amount was shown 'here' ie the £500k. Then in November he stated that he had decided not to take Potaq's investment. That would seem misleading to me. It also seems to mirror the Instarmac situation. Maybe coincidence? Earlier the Instarmac investment of £1.8m had been shown on Greenbackers as a confirmed amount. But then is wasnt confirmed. Again is that misleading? We may have different views on that.
DeleteRegarding the negative output - we just report the facts. A 4X return is ok but is isnt Carling if you consider the risk element is this sector. For any portfolio to make sense with the current failure rates, you need the returns a lot higher than 4X. It is simple matter of fact.
We have covered a few very successful companies and if you read the blog you will find we sing their praises. What we do not do is lie about failures like the other Equity CF press.
Please keep us informed on your successes and we will write about them.
I am an investor in both MacRebur rounds and as a regular reader of the forums on companies I have invested in on Seedrs, I felt that everything was made clear on the MacRebur discussion page at the relevant stages.
ReplyDeleteJust for the record, this may be of interest: https://www.director.co.uk/director-of-the-year-awards-2018-toby-mccartney-ceo-macrebur/
Appreciate your opinion. We were aware of this award. How do you explain the fact that the Indian VCs so talked up by the CEO, never invested - even though though the CEO told everyone in the Seedrs forum that the investment of £500k had already been made, a long time before the Seedrs pitch closed? I'm genuinely interested in how you square that circle.
DeleteMy understanding was (which may or may not be correct, but from my recollection)that the Pontaq proposal was made during the round and MacRebur decided to reject the investment weeks before the close of the round. MacRebur did expand on the reasons why they did not accept the investment on the forum, which I felt was perfectly reasonable. I'm not a professional investor though and I would have happily invested whether Pontaq were on board or not. MacRebur is just up the road from me and I like to support local businesses. They have achieved much in a short time and are promising more, to the environment, for our roads and I believe for their investors.
ReplyDeleteAny prospective investor who was unhappy that the Pontaq deal did not go through was absolutely free to withdraw their investment at any time - I personally don't see any problem.
You have sidestepped the issue - which is the CEO stated as a fact (on an FCA regulated platform) on the forum that the Pontaq investment was already committed - it (the Pontaq VC investment) was then used on quite a few occasions to knock over any DD questions. Yet this secured investment turned out to be nothing in the end. I dont see how this is not misleading. If it was not invested when he said it was then he should not have misled investors. Of course if you were gong to invest anyway then this conversation and your comments are really rather pointless.
DeleteRob,
ReplyDeleteI was simply trying to answer your direct question to the best of my ability. It seems I do not have the qualifications, knowledge or experience to make worthy contribute to your discussions, I do apologise.
No one is suggesting you do not have the experience or knowledge, we are merely pointing out facts that flatly contradict your claims. If you are happy with your investment, then good for you. I hope it goes on to make you a good return. And thank you for your contribution to the debate. We dont have any minimum standards here - we just want to get at the truth.
Delete