Monzo to raise £4.5m without the Crowd

As if to emphasise the story below, we have been contacted by a Crowdcube shareholder in Monzo (previously Mondo), the challenger bank that raised £1m on Crowdcube recently.

The Board at Monzo have issued shareholders with some news - which if you read our last blog is at least a good start. However the news is not all good.

In the Crowdcube pitch Monzo talked about the need to raise further funding, approximately £15m. The Crowd would be involved. The Board have now decided that they will raise a separate £4.5m now via VCs. No Crowd.

When we asked this shareholder if he thought this was in the interests of all those who backed Monzo via Crowdcube, he said -

Personally I don't think it's ideal - they should've given the crowd an opportunity to, given they point out they "couldn't have built Monzo" without the Crowd's help - and the Crowd even helped pick a new name for the bank. I'm sure the appetite is there.

What this now does is dilute the crowd's holding which may well have an effect when Monzo come back for another £15m next year, We will have to wait and see. As someone once said, shitting on your own doorstep is never a good idea.

Crowdcube crashes due to Mondo - what next?

It is hard to believe.

The much heralded challenger Bank Mondo's £1m Crowdcube raise has been a bit like watching Madonna on a bad night.

Despite lots of figures being banded about on the numbers of the Crowd who had registered to take part and had been sent emails etc, the platform crashed immediately the pitch went live. Two hours later Mondo posted a tweet apologising for the confusion and stating the pitch had been suspended - not a reference to Madonna's attire.

These are two tech based businesses that seem to find it hard to handle the tech.

Of course we will get the usual Crowdcube Langisms about how the unprecedented demand could not have been foretold and how is was not their fault, anyway but, yeah but cos it wosnt. So there. He can hardly blame Mondo.

Why did Mondo choose Crowdcube? That has to be down to their funders, it certainly cannot be because of their record.