Idleman raised £720k on Crowdcube in 2015 and then another round for £1.2m on Syndicate Room in 2016. They have just filed for YE July 2017 and its not great news for investors. The company is reporting losses of £2.1m against projections of a £500k loss. Its puts them almost £1m into the red.
We have covered this crew before. They have alsways disappointed. Much hype, zero delivery.
At the end of 2017 they did raise around £1m which will just have covered their deficit. What happens now is anyone's guess. We have a few ideas.
Rob - appreciate the research and the point you're trying to make but there is some element of needing to cut companies some slack when investing for growth and scalability. Especially given that Idleman were projecting consistent mid term losses before reaching breakeven and sales growth has been good relative to the current climate in UK retail.
ReplyDeleteI'm not trying to suggest Idleman nailed on for success but ASOS lost a stack of money (c. £2.5m) in their first 3 years of trading (early 2000s). It would be an interesting comparison if that loss was inflation adjusted (esp. given that the culture of private equity funding has changed substantially in that time and VCs are happy to subsidise growing companies).
Of course - we do take that into account, having been around SME and start ups for more than 30 years. What would be interesting is to see what ASOS projected their figures would be. We are normally right when we make a call in this space - actually havent been wrong yet.
ReplyDeleteI didn't invest in Idleman but have friends that did and visit the site from time to time. Have you seen any of their other metrics (COA, AOV, LTV etc?) Would be interesting to see if they are trending more favourably
ReplyDeleteNo we dont have that information. But agree would be interesting - so if anyone out there does have it, send it through and we can discuss it.
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