So what's the deal with Seedrs shareholders in recently sold Freeagent?

Freeagent just sold to RBS for £53m. Back in 2015 Freeagent used Seedrs to raise £1.2m.

In what was at the time the first crowdfunded company to IPO, Freeagent went public in 2016, just a year after crowdfunding. The launch price for shares was 84p valuing the company at several million pounds less than Seedrs attempts. Figures are hard to verify at this stage but this IPO was a down round for Seedrs investors. The price since then has been as high as £1.42 but recently was on a gradual decline into the sub 70p bracket. Seedrs investors initially paid £10 for shares but this was reduced to £1 in a 10:1 split in 2016.

The CH filings for Freeagent are a disaster -  couldnt make a lot of sense of them. The long and short of it appears to be better to wait for an IPO with guaranteed liquidity than invest on Seedrs. The other very obvious conclusion is that this company was overvalued by a very large amount if you take the industry norm of a 10X ROI. On this basis shares should have sold to investors on Seedrs at around £5m not over £30m. I wonder why? 

Where are They Now Part 2 - More of the Same

As the results roll in, we get a better picture as to how equity crowdfunded companies have fared.

Property Moose 

Raised £160k on Crowdcube in 2014. In 2015 they made a profit - which is we think a first for a Crowdcube funded company. Before we all take off our clothes in celebration, this was a profit of £75k against a projected profit on Crowdcube of over £800k. When assessing their achievement you also have to take into account that 2014 saw a loss against a projceted profit of £400k and shareholders have been diluted several times - again no mention of this on the Crowdcube version of events.

You should also know that James Cadbury, who resigned as director of Moose, has opened a new chocolate (surprise surprise) venture Love Cocoa, which he intends to crowdfund (surprise surprise). He appeared in the Crowdcube Moose campaign as one of 3 key team members. Only one remains. 

Scaramouche and Fandango

UPDATE 22/11/2106

We have now received more information on S&F. They are in fact doing rather well and will most probably be ahead of the Crowdcube projections for 2016 - yes that was ahead. So firstly many congratulations on what will be a first for Crowdcube and apologies for not being up to speed  - although we cant take too much blame as we can only report on the information we have. Thanks to the SH who shared this info.

Now renamed the Galileo Group, they seem to gone off map. According to the Crowdcube projections (where have we heard that before?) 2015 saw the company make a small profit. 

Well, accounts filed for 2015 report a £150k loss, on top of accumulated losses of £250k, which means the bank was empty on their BS. S&F raised £150k on Crowdcube in 2014 and have raised more funding since, despite not forecasting this in the CC pitch.

Sorry the news is all the same but we can only report what actually happens  - we leave Crowdcube to make things up. 

Free Agent

Free Agent raised £1,2m on Seedrs in 2015 at a valuation of £30m. They have just completed an IPO on Aim at a  pre money valuation of £26m. But apparently at least now the shares are liquid. Maybe investors should wait for the IPO before investing in the future? Institutional investors seem to have benefited. Of coure what the management of Seedrs have ignored (we presume on purpose as they are not stupid) is that you cannot simply sell your shares now unless you want to make a net loss. EIS dictates that you must hang on to them for 3 years - so 2018 would be the earliest you could sell and keep the 30% rebate. So no Seedrs, these shares are not now liquid. Privately Seedrs have admitted that this is a down round. Hmmm.