September is a busy month for company filings. We have a whole host of Crowdcube funded companies lined up to reveal their accounts for YE Nov and Dec 17.
UPDATE - we notice that recent lack of progress in completions has pushed Crowdcube into sheer madness with the new launch of an old Brewdog campaign - just to make things even less/more 'misleading'. Ridiculous boys. Doesn't mention the disaster with your bottles anywhere does it?
Of course not all of them are in yet and some will no doubt not get round to it until the New Year but here are some of them - there isn't any good news.
Lovespace - Projected £7m profit is in fact a loss of £1.5m - another one.
London Doctors Clinic - Projected loss of £620k is in fact a loss of £1.1m
Gripit - Projected loss of £240k is in fact a loss of £1.78m
Gamesgrb - Projected profit of £2.57m is in fact a loss of £100k
Emoneyhub (Justus) - Projected profit of £2.3m is in fact a loss £280k
Cupris - Projected loss of £464k is in fact a loss of £323k failed to raise extra £1m
Cornerstone Brands - Projected profit of £650k is in fact a loss of £3.5m
Clear Water Revival - Projected profit of £550k is in fact a profit of £46k
Chargebox - Projected profit of ~£1m is in fact profit of £100k
Cake Tech -------------------Sold out with no money for CC shareholders------------
1854 Media - Projected profit of £210k is in fact loss of £113k
Big Sofa ---------------------Sold out with little or no money for CC shareholders-----------
Bellfield Brewery - Projected profit od £550k is in fact loss of £209k
Affresol---------------------Liquidated----------------------------------------------------------------
Berrywhite------------------Liquidated----------------------------------------------------------------
Workabode-----------------Due £7.5m profit 2018 and no idea how they will get to this------
Vakay-----------------------Site down and didnt raise £500k extra funding.
Estatesdirect.com----------Sold to Pels Family Office. CC Shareholders get 70p/£100.
Earwig - Projected profit of £429k is in fact a loss of £100k
7 Bros Brewery - Projected profit of £267k is in fact a loss of £70k
Righteous - Projected profit of £300k is in fact a loss of £60k
And so it goes on and on and will keep doing so, unless Crowdcube make a better attempt at promoting serious businesses run by people with some hope of getting there. EIS and SEIS could be used to help with this - but then the FCA and UK Gov have no real interest in promoting meaningful SME growth long term. Short term numbers are key and they show a rise in SME start ups. Yipee.
More to follow as they file but Im not expecting any of them to get even close to their ridiculous Crowdcube figures.
How does this compare to businesses that have raised capital at seed stage from other sources, I.e. angels. It would be great to see if projections on crowdfunding platforms (not just Crowdcube) are out of kilter with other sources of capital.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. These numbers are meaningless without that context.
ReplyDeleteAlso re BrewDog - I assume you are talking about the experiment they tried at Overworks which cost them about £100k in wastage. Would you really expect a company worth £1.8bn to discuss every one of those in an investment pitch? Also let's face it - anyone investing in BrewDog at this stage is in it for the perks. CrowdCube is just a convenient way of getting them if you're already a member. Quite tempted actually...
To the Anonymous poster above: Angels don't have a habit of broadcasting their losers. It's almost impossible to identify any successes within privately funded organisations.
ReplyDeleteTo Old Dave above: BrewDog is not worth £1.8bn as you seem to bandy about. It is worth what someone or some organisation is willing to pay for the shares. Valuations of unlisted companies are worth similar to most unbacked, fiat currencies - i.e. nothing in reality.
ReplyDeleteAny thoughts on Awesome Merch raise on Crowdcube? Looks like they have a very solid business already...
ReplyDeleteWe already commented on this Co - see past posts.
ReplyDeleteLakes Distillery considers IPO
ReplyDeletehttps://www.lakesdistillery.com/blog/2018/09/the-lakes-distillery-considers-possible-listing-on-aim/
any thoughts
Yes saw that. They also had a planned raise through issuing 2.5m new shares to Eera (Finish Co) but that doesnt seem to have been followed through. Small funding rounds recently seem to value it at 10X what CC investors paid so they must be getting something right but an IPO for just £15m??? That doesnt make sense to me - could just be a PR game I think. Accounts due out end of this month might give some clues.
ReplyDeleteActually doing some more digging this looks very flakey. Cliams to be stocked by Tesco turn out to be just 19 stores local to The Lakes, FT reports t/o up 43% YoY but their CC pitch reported over 80% for YoY revenue growth. 3 year revenue total over £9m (at 80% Yoy) 15/16/17 according to CC pitch but 18 Rev only £4.3m - those sums really do not work. Mainly a PR exercise IMO.
ReplyDeleteRob,
ReplyDeleteThank you for all your hardwork! Meaningful and a valuable education in how shite the crowdcube farce really is. You should be government funded as a consumer watchdog if nothing else. I have been ejected from my bubble of trust by this blog (and have saved a few quid because of it- thanks again).
Any chance of doing a + article on some co's actually being straight and pushing through? Maybe honing in on Justpark?
The company ppears to be have grown its sales from £949,000 (see 'financial snapshot' given in their crowdcube raise of 2015) to £3.7m as per article in The Times yesterday - link https://twitter.com/JustPark/status/1038708937661599744
Also their most recent investor update mentions there were 240,000 "cars parked- apps" in July '18 alone, up from 8,000 transactions per month (guesstified from press releases) back in 2014/15.
How about you shine a light on the diamonds in the rough, just to give the hardworking, and honest founders/CEO's and good guys a bit of LOVE?
I'm an investor fwiw, and very very stupid.
From what I can see the Crowdcube figures showed sales at almost £4m by 2014 - but that is total transaction value so its hard to know. TTV was supposed to be at £10m by 2017 with revenue from that of £3m. I cant see what the T against their revenue figure signifies. I do know they are losing money big time. So still up in the air on these guys - I never go much on awards and PR lists.
Delete