So in partnership with Deloitte, Green Shores Capital and Linklaters, Crowdcude are offering winners of their new January Fintech competition, a share of £500k investment. This will be split 3 ways, according to the article in Forbes - here
In order to be eligible to enter, Fintech start ups must be on Crowdcube raising money. Having access to a £500k is fantastic for Fintech start ups but then it may depend on the terms being offered, as this is an investment not a hand out. No details on that appear in the Forbes article. We assume if the terms cant be agreed the investment, much like so many 'agreed' on Dragon's Den, will come to nout. In that case it would just be a PR stunt.
The rather odd thing is that there is only one company that you could tag as 'Fintech' currently on CC and that one is only 53% funded with 8 days to go. So not exactly a caste iron certainty.
So we have to assume that the platform and its partners know that 3 suitable investment opportunities are booked and ready to go live before the 31 January. Which rather spoils the idea of a competition we think. But that's just our opinion - we certainly wouldnt wish to raise the ire of an internationally recognised law firm! Not again!
PR comes to mind, especially as the article is accompanied by shot of Luke Lang's cheeky grin.
Score Genius would also qualify as fintech wouldn't it?
ReplyDeleteBorderline I suppose yes - but is it likely to win this competition?
DeleteI'm sorry, I've always appreciated your work, but I don't think this post is fair to crowdcube:
ReplyDeleteThere is atleast one another fintech company I'm aware of raising on crowdcube, albeit in a private raise. The deadline was yesterday, but applicants need to be aiming to close their campaign on march 31st, Implying they can launch their pitch on March 1st, at the very latest.
The competition criteria states "up to" 3 companies, so I should think there's no need for 3 succesful applicants - 1 will suffice.
It seems like we'll get to find out all the successfull applicants on 24th january @ "fora borough" (wwherever that is) when they're announced.
I got all of this from the competition page on crowdcube, right form the horse's mouth.
Far enough - I was going on the info in the article as I stated, which said that the competition ended Jan19. I think you mean closing their by 31 March not on it? So if we are to have the successful applicants by 24 January as you suggest, how does that tally with 31 March?? That is 12 days from now! Tighter than Brexit. I still think it's mainly PR - that is what Crowdcube are good at.
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DeleteSorry Anon but you post was garbled nonsense. Try again.
ReplyDeleteSure, my bad: The gist of what I was saying is that all the information is on crowdcube's page; A company doesn't have to be raising at the time of application on crowdcube to apply, it seems. Nevermind the dates, it's easy to get confused over them.
DeletePersonally, I'm quite excited about the competition, and I expect many others are too. Ablrate, the p2p lending platform, is currently raising in private mode on crowdcube. Odds are that they've already applied. Time will tell what other fintechs were lured in.
But yeah, the competition seems to be going as they planned. No signs of jeopardy just yet. There's just no way of knowing which companies have applied until they're announced.
The point of the post is that we are sure the funders of the fintech fund do know what is in the pipe line otherwise they would not have agreed to these restrictive dates. We dont know. I do think you are also wrong about the fact that a company not live on CC is eligible to apply. In our experience many companies look at ECf and even get to the stage of applying to CC or whoever and then for various reasons decide to postpone or cancel. Nothing wrong with that. But if you had companies applying fro the fund, on the basis that they would be going live on CC and then they cancelled - the organisation for the competition would be left in chaos. That seems very unlikely. Did you make that bit up? What you are implying is that say Monzo could apply, as it has raised on CC in the past and may well do so again at some date in the future. So that goes for every single fintech company that has ever used CC or might have an intention to do so in the future - so that is ALL fintech Co's potentially. Clearly that is nonsense.
DeleteFurther to the above and in keeping with what we wrote in the post, it is clearly great news for fintech start ups to have a £500k fund. We were just musing over the vagueness of the way this had all been set up.
DeleteEither i'm not getting my point across, or you're misunderstanding what Im trying to say. I'll try to be clearer. As I said, I love your blog so would hate to think i've entered a spat with you!
DeleteSo. The competition requires that applicants must be aiming to close a crowdcube raise by march 31st. Nowhere on crowdcube expressed that they must be live at the time of applying. The contestants will be announced 17th January, with winners announced on 24th. If i'm right, contestants announced on the 17th won't be live on crowdcube ofcourse (not in a *public* campaign atleast, e.g. Ablrate). If only the fintechs on CC at present were allowed, it'll all have been a bit of a damp squib - that i agree with.
The march 31st campaign close date does, however, imply that any applicants will launch a CC campaign on March 1st at the latest, assuming a 30 day campaign as is customary. So a company could apply to, then win, the competition on 24th january and subsequently raise capital from the crowd , starting from march 1st at the latest. So, monzo are inelligible simply on the basis that they aren't aiming to close a campaign on crowdcube by march 31st. Furthermore, only seed/series A companies can apply. This information is all on crowdcube's site.
There is nothing to say that Green Shore capital's terms aren't contingent on a succesful raise. So if, as you posit, a company cancelled their fundraising round, Green Shore would feel bereft perhaps, but no worse off. Can't imagine anybody applying to, winning, then refusing 500k of VC money though.
Although I disagree CC have been vague, I totally agree the competition is great news. A £500K VC boost is likely to attract some great fintech startups. I have a few guesses who will show up but they're just that: guesses.
No need for a spat - I charge for those. Im still not clear on how this is supposed to work. And im not convinced you are right. 1. VCs like Green Shore will have terms that maybe(key word) unacceptable to the company - so yea there are plenty of reasons why a company might turn down the VC funding. We cannot know this now. 2. Under your interpretation (which may well be right) entrants must be in by 17 Jan. Therefore there is no way that a company that is not live on CC or booked to be live before the 31 March can be eligible on 17 Jan when the entrants close. Im only going by what the news report stated - that all contestants MUST be raising money on CC. Therefore if they announce a winner on 24 Jan as you state, that company and in fact all the contestants must be booked into CC already by that date. For example they announce a winner Co X on 24 Jan. But Co X changes its mind and decides not to launch its March 2019 CC campaign - moving instead to Seedrs. Now that would be funny!
ReplyDeletefurther - if the pitches that enter and win by the 24th Jan are already booked into launching a CC campaign (as they must be to enter) then the whole competition element is fake? I have passed this info onto two Fintechs Im helping but if the decision has already been made then that makes this exercise pointless other than CC getting new pitches - under what seems on the surface to be false pretences? To enter, you have do so by Thursday and you have to be signed up to a CC raise by then. Therefore they already know who is entering? They already know the terms they are offering as do the entrants (possibly) and the whole thing is a PR exercise?
DeleteHahahaahaa - just read the terms - applications CLOSED on 11 Jan!!
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