Investden claims to have raised money for Bedlam Brewery are false?

An FCA regulated equity crowdfunding platform has claimed to have raised over £250k for Bedlam Brewery. Bedlam Brewery deny this. 

Bedlam are currently on Crowdcube raising £330k. We posted an article on them recently stating that they had raised money on Investden and showing how the projections used then had been missed by several fairways.

To refute this, Bedlam have posted a response on the CC pitch forum stating that they have never raised money on Investden and have asked them to remove the claim - with no response. You can see the Investden claim here

Someone is lying. 

Investden are FCA regulated via a proxy arrangement with Clasp Investments, who own and run the platform. If they are promoting false information - the link above clearly states they raised the money from 87 investors for Bedlam, then action must be taken. Of course it wont, but it must be.   

Investden get heavy on us

Below is a message we received today from the CEO of Investden

Dear Rob Murray Brown, 

 InvestDen takes issue with your suggestion of missellng in your blog posted 7 February 2016. The email titled "Last 12 Hours" which went out exclusively to our member club was correct at the time of publication and was fair, clear and not misleading. You fail to mention the subsequent email to our members which detailed the extension to this campaign. We subsequently extended the deadline beyond the last 12 hours, based on our discretion and in collaboration with the members of the Horse Co, and at the request of some of our members (as we are entitled to do pursuant to the terms). For the avoidance of doubt, the pitch closed (meaning that funds were prohibited from being taken ) in line with prescribed timeline of our last email to our members. You should really present all of the facts to your readers as in this instance you have grossly misrepresented the fact scenario. We also take issue with the difficulty in posting a response to your blog and the fact that it requires "approval" from an administrator. It is very hypocritical on the basis that you are trying to create a transparent dialogue with the marketplace. I trust you will immediately (a) post our response; (b) include the full facts; (c) publicly retract and apologize for your misstatement of facts. Failure to take action before 5pm today will result in the commencement of legal proceedings against you. Matt Novak

Here are the full facts..................................

On the 4 Feb at 3.18pm Invetsden members received an email alert saying that there were only 24 hours left to invest in the horse. On the 5 Feb at 1.36pm another similar alert was received, stating that there were only 12 hours left. This appears in our blog. 

Then on 7 Feb at 8.16pm yet another email was received stating that 'due to popular demand' the pitch had been extended for another one day. On the 7 Feb the live pitch on the platform stated that it had another 8 days to run.

The pitch has now closed having failed to get over 37% of its funding.

It is worth noting for total clarity that Mr Novak is a Director of both Investden and the horse pitch.

None of what is stated above contradicts anything we have said before but if we have misled people in anyway we do sincerely apologise. We have not accused Investden of misselling but merely posed the question about the tactics used to promote this pitch. We came to no conclusion. We leave that to readers.

We have obliged Mr Novak by going to some lengths to pull together the dates and information above. Exact timings on the emails may not be accurate as this will depend on computer settings and the times given are those of the messages being received.

We are completely open about posting responses to our posts - we have to have some control as we have had many 'comments' which are just spam links to selling sites - we have to be able to delete these. 

Is this platform misselling?

We were sent this email by an investor member of Investden on the 5 February. Investden is one of the newish equity crowdfunding platforms that have popped up recently.

Nothing wrong with it you would think. Until you look on the Investden site and realise that the pitch which they state here is on its last 12 hours has now been extended for another 8 days.

When is misselling not misselling?

This platforms claims to have teamed up with accounting giant KPMG - the same accounting giant that had four top level accountants arrested for fraud last November and were fined $465m in 2014 for criminal violations.

Sounds like a good fit.

It really is a bloody disgrace.

LAST 12 HOURS! Last call to horse around with Michael Owen. With only 12hrs to go until City A.M. Horse Alpha Co closes,ACT NOW to secure your place alongside Michael Owen in owning a percentage of a race horse for the 2016 season. SPECIAL REWARDS AND PRIVILEGES WILL APPLY CONTACT US NOW Support@investden.com

Do we need another me2 Equity Crowdfunding site?

The one thing the UK is crying out for is a new look Equity Crowdfunding site.

One where pitches are thoroughly vetted, by an experienced team. One where the valuations are sensible in terms of risk and reward. One where projections are ambitious but not ludicrous. And one essentially where we can start to build sustainable SMEs with the Crowd's money, rather than building ECF platforms for their own sake.

Investden has just appeared on the radar.

The team behind this venture appears to have plenty of business experience or so they tell us. The evidence on the site tells a different story.

Once again we have inflated valuations and financial projections that can be seen from space. Most of the live pitches have very few 'investors' putting in large sums. For example one pitch looking for £1.4m has only one investor to date who put in just over 1m. What the..?

You can see how carefully the platform has considered its offer in the way it presents its financials. For all Crowdcube's many failings, they do at least know how to present. Investden have gone for the RAW technique or to put it another way they havent bothered to change the excel sheets at all. Each pitch has different excel sheet data presented in an essentially unintelligible form.

One aspect of the platform that intrigued us was the attempt to create a secondary market. Attempt might be too strong a word here but at least they have recognised the problem. They have two trades on offer, both in shares from ex Crowdcube pitches. Amusingly the reason given for 'selling' these shares is liquidity. The value of each transaction is £100! Its impossible to take it seriously. 

So this new player is just more of the same old rubbish. Surely we can do better.