Freetrade
, a startup offering stockbroking services, has announced a new crowdfunding round via Crowdcube. The investment app has partially funded its operations from the community ever since launching in 2016 and it still does it annually.
From 25,000 users and circa 8,000 shareholders last year, Freetrade currently boasts 150,000 users, which represents growth of 500% in a year, demonstrating how shareholders are a valuable asset in the firm’s marketing efforts.
Freetrade has also successfully completed a Series A funding round in 2019, led by led by venture capital firm Draper Esprit. The firm has plans for a larger Series B in late 2020 or early 2021, but the current coronavirus lockdown has naturally made them revisit these assumptions.
The pandemic has positively impacted Freetrade’s business, with record signups, customer deposits, and investment activity on a daily basis. “On balance, we feel it is an even more compelling time to raise more capital to help fuel the growth we are experiencing”, the firm said. “Under normal circumstances, a crowdfunding campaign is open for weeks and gives prospective investors a chance to ask questions of the team and explore investment pitch documents before deciding to invest. That hasn’t been possible for many in the last couple rounds due to the speed of closing, so this time around we are going to make more information available before the round opens”, said the announcement.
“We’ve kicked off a series of AMAs (ask me anything) via Zoom with Freetrade execs, the latest being last week with our Co-founder and CMO Viktor. We’ll have a few more or these in advance of the round, and during, so you can get your questions answered in the absence of the in-person investor events and open office hours that we normally did during previous rounds”, it continued.
Freetrade will be giving private access to its existing investors first, followed by customers, before making the materials available on a public pitch page. “So remember: if you want early access to our next crowdfunding round, and you haven’t invested in any prior rounds, then you should join Freetrade now.”
