Curve crowdfunding

Malthusian

jaybeetoo wrote: »

Curve need to sort their systems out. Several times recently, I have received messages saying they are experiencing a disruption to their service and to carry a backup card.

I know I'm a cynic but if that's a regular occurrence, doesn't that defeat the entire purpose?

It's not just about adding another card to my wallet if Curve's sent me a text. If their system can't be relied upon, if I go abroad for a week I need to take my bank cards in case there's a disruption to Curve during that time.

I like the idea of a multi-card card but it seems more like something that either your bank or your card issuer will offer in-house within the next 10 years rather than something that will make investors rich via the flogging of travel insurance.

bowlhead99 wrote: »

They were easily able to hit their crowdfunding raise target several times over without doing that (because their customers like the story and are generally not sophisticated investors) and so they are not going to do that now because they can afford plenty of the crowd investors to drop out.

They can only afford crowd investors to drop out if they will achieve profitability and become self-sustaining before they burn through the remaining cash.

If they don't the fundraising target is not about Curve only needing so much cash, it is about creating the illusion of scarcity.

polestar2

I think such problems are there with most of the recent digital cards moneysavingexpert.com/news/2017/07/Glitch-that-affected-Monzo-Revolut-and-Curve-customers-this-morning-now-resolved

What really attract me is their 'time travel' - ability to swap cards after doing the transactions. This have already helped me a lot.

A guess from another customer (from Crowdcube discussion) is "I could be completely wrong here but my reading of the value in this product was based around the data collection, without providing specifics they will collect trends, demographics and regional data on who uses what to buy x, y, z and when"
But as with other threads, no official reply from Curve. Does anyone think it is a possibility?

masonic

polestar2 wrote: »

A guess from another customer (from Crowdcube discussion) is "I could be completely wrong here but my reading of the value in this product was based around the data collection, without providing specifics they will collect trends, demographics and regional data on who uses what to buy x, y, z and when"
But as with other threads, no official reply from Curve. Does anyone think it is a possibility?

With products like these, card users are the product and their information will be monetised in any way permitted by the T&Cs of the product. The question is how valuable that information will be to advertisers. Eventually the company will need to make a profit if it is to survive. I can't see people paying a fee for the service.

bowlhead99

Malthusian wrote: »

They can only afford crowd investors to drop out if they will achieve profitability and become self-sustaining before they burn through the remaining cash.

If they don't the fundraising target is not about Curve only needing so much cash, it is about creating the illusion of scarcity.

The fundraising target is just about putting some notional 'target' into a pitch so that they can say they're aiming for some meaningful amount from the crowd (eg £1m sounds like something meaningful whereas £100k on a £200m valuation doesn't). The purpose of the crowdfunding is not to make a massive difference to when they run out of cash, but to increase customer engagement and get themselves more 'cheerleaders' for the product, without diluting the owners too heavily.

They already took £40m plus from institutions this round to well capitalise the business for its growth rate , but will utilise it at a pace that's not particularly visible to us with the limited information we have. When they next run low, if they are still growing the business or the customer numbers, they will hope to secure some more tens of millions from institutions to ensure cash burn is well covered to get to the next level whatever that may be.

So whether they get (say) 2m, 3m or 4m from the crowd here, would probably not change what year they will be needing another round of institutional cash, because 45m vs 46m vs 47m probably still takes the same ballpark amount of time to get through, or ballpark number of accounts to support, given the inaccuracies inherent in estimating cash burn and growth rates in early stage businesses.

Nardge

Good afternoon,

Many thanks for the above discussion.

I'd be very grateful if you could offer your thoughts for me also on the 'Chip Financial Ltd crowdfunding' thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6047673/chip-financial-ltd-crowdfunding

Thanking you in advance

With Kind Regards

P.S. Chameleon - There was a very useful discussion on Crowdfunding in general here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75809013#Comment_75809013

Perhaps Martin Lewis could write a piece on Crowdfunding/Start-up Investments with an allied discussion thread as he did for both the Stocks and Shares and Innovative Finance asset classes? Just a thought.

bowlhead99

Nardge wrote: »

Perhaps Martin Lewis could write a piece on Crowdfunding/Start-up Investments with an allied discussion thread as he did for both the Stocks and Shares and Innovative Finance asset classes? Just a thought.

The public debt and equity markets typically accessed via S&S ISAs on average deliver positive returns over time. For P2P/ IF loans, the majority have not defaulted.

However, the majority of startup businesses fail, and semi-public pitches for equity on crowdfunding sites do not really provide adequate information to evaluate their prospects - and for the average amount of money that a typical crowdfunding investor invests per deal it's not at all efficient to spend real money seeking out further due diligence information and comprehensively evaluating them. As such, it has to be a bit of a punt.

Martin Lewis has had enough trouble with online scams borrowing his name or likeness to sucker in naive punters without his knowledge or consent. He wants to preserve his image as a money saving expert. As such, he probably doesn't want to write an investment piece that necessarily has to conclude "at the end of the day, it's a bit of a punt and you are quite likely to lose everything".

Nardge

bowlhead99 wrote: »

The public debt and equity markets typically accessed via S&S ISAs on average deliver positive returns over time. For P2P/ IF loans, the majority have not defaulted.

However, the majority of startup businesses fail, and semi-public pitches for equity on crowdfunding sites do not really provide adequate information to evaluate their prospects - and for the average amount of money that a typical crowdfunding investor invests per deal it's not at all efficient to spend real money seeking out further due diligence information and comprehensively evaluating them. As such, it has to be a bit of a punt.

Martin Lewis has had enough trouble with online scams borrowing his name or likeness to sucker in naive punters without his knowledge or consent. He wants to preserve his image as a money saving expert. As such, he probably doesn't want to write an investment piece that necessarily has to conclude "at the end of the day, it's a bit of a punt and you are quite likely to lose everything".

Thanks for your discussion and thoughts.

You make valid points regarding Martin Lewis.

I imagine we can make do with the Startup Investing discussion thread begun by johnathanmdavies.

With Kind Regards