Despite the very recent fiasco with Sugru and yet more large losses filed by Asio Ltd (Chirp), Crowdcube has helped Adzuna raise another £8m and Freetrade another £3.1m all in the last 7 days.
Our only surprise is that along with Louis Litt and Mike, Darren was not to be seen at the Wedding.
Both of these raises were entirely or largely carried out in the private mode, with Freetrade taking in £2.5m before opening out and Adzuna, using 400 Crowdcube investors, never appearing on the public site.
Still the crowd has had chances to invest in both, through the public site and was enthusiastic in doing so - we just have to to see if the virtual value that these companies have created becomes a reality or whether more funding indicates a situation more akin to the Sugru one. A massive shortfall in revenues leading to a fire sale and the loss of investors £5.5m. There was little warning with Sugru, we had a heads up from inside Crowdcube, so we'd expect there to be little with any new disasters.
There has been an assiduous radio silence from Beauhurst on their misuse of CAGR for working out investors 'returns' - only relying on next round valuations for their data. We would have thought the very obvious hazards in this method, so clearly shown by Sugru and few other recent collapses, after up round fundings, would have led to a statement? Maybe the FCA should look at redefining 'misleading'?
It's a crazy world out there - take care.
