Hey guys,
we have been thinking about this quite a lot recently. 
The possibility of a crowdfunding for us is appealing to get everyone involved and considering we have just announced 100k monthly active users (real ones), it could be very easy for us to run one.
Would you be interested? Have you invested in any recently?
I participated in a few crowdfunds 3-4 years ago. I havenāt done any since but Iād be interested in participating in an Emma crowdfund.
Was there any reason why you did a few? Any concerns on valuations, amount raised or more technical stuff?
It was when I started becoming aware of crowdfunding. There was only a limited amount of money I was willing to commit to investing in start-ups / non-listed companies (due to high risk, lack of liquidity, and inability to invest within ISA). I just reached that limit and stopped. Probably willing to put a bit more in now having had a break.
Have you received any updates from those investments? I guess it could be an opportunity for us to grow the community. 
I did 6 in total. I think all of them have provided at least one email update per year to crowdfunding investors. Three have their own communities (Monzo, Freetrade, and Chip) and I think all get high engagement from crowdfunding participants. Chipās community seems quietest.
I think a negative side effect of having both crowdfunding investors and a community is it can lead to more squabbles on the community as many investors become very protective of the company and jump on negative comments from other users - particularly evident on Monzo and Freetrade community. But maybe thatās just a cost youāll have to put up with anyway if youād like the community to grow.
ah ah ah, I have seen this, but what can you do. For us, it would be great anyway.
I invest a lot via Crowdcube and Seedrs and was sad to learn they were blocked from merging by the CMA.
Seedrs has a secondary market so if you arenāt so happy with a company you may be able to offload your shares and set the price of this.
Companies have nearly all given regular updates on progress and some of them will give you very rich insights into their growth and plans. This is something I would expect to see from the pitch deck to the regular comms.
If basic questions need to be asked then I tend to question his difficult comms will become after the raise.
I agree DD is mostly down to the individual. Thereās been at least 4 investments I didnāt invest in but I always raise my DD issues in the comments on the crowdfunding site so others can make informed decisions.
For example, in a check I ran on one director, I found him to be incorporating a new company almost every month with the same type and variations on a name. His team posting as him basically said these companies are not part of any raise and he would refuse to answer questions on his business matters elsewhere. It was pretty obvious that he would couldnāt focus all his energy on a company when there were 32 others.
Finally another director check found him to have had an employment tribunal case against him. Not a massive red flag but when you read the case notes, it was said that he harnessed a culture of misogyny, homophobia, and sales targets raised dramatically and to an unobtainable level for those he wanted to fire.
In that instance, he said he couldnāt comment on it as he didnāt attend the tribunal 
I love crowdfunding almost as much as I love traditional investing in stocks, but as someone who has raised money previously myself, I know your comms need to be on point.
Which platform would you consider the best? (also biggest)
A quick lookup on SimilarWeb would reveal that Seedrs has way more volume, but Crowdcube has done a lot of cool fintechs.
I think Seedrs is better overall, but Crowdcube is often first in peopleās minds.
I like how Seedrs handles share certificates and as mentioned, they have a secondary market and take care of all of the transfers.
Is this because of the brand?
Yes, I was thinking the same.
I think it is the brand yes. Seedrs just arenāt as impactful with this I think.
By the way, this is happening in June. 
Weāll have more information very very soon.
This is exciting, Iāve been following Emma since your presentation at Monzo. Really love the app and have seen it improve significantly over the years.
I am also a big fan of crowdfunding, itās definitely a great way to get super fans of the product. Iāve invested in over 10 startups. Itās also another way to market the app. Monzo is a great example of this.
Iām looking forward to participating in the crowdfunding of Emma if the opportunity arises.
My preference is CrowdCube, but from what Iām hearing about Seedrs and the secondary market and share allocation, it sounds like an interesting alternative.
Hey @solcache, welcome to the Emma Community 
So happy to hear that you think this is exciting!
What were your main reasons for investing in these startups? Was Monzo one of them?
Wow! Were you in the crowd? We got our first 100 users there. ehehe
I use both Seedrs and CrowdCube and I definitely prefer the first one. I should disclose that I worked for them more than 4 years ago, but it has nothing to do with that. All the process of buying and selling shares is much more well thought in Seedrs and you can see they put a lot of development and design effort in it. With CrowdCube is quite clunky. They recently contacted me so see if I was interested to sell my Freetrade shares and the process was supposed to be done via Google Sheet.
On Seedrs there is a proper Secondary Market.
I would go for Seedrs for similar reasons also if I was the company wanting to crowdfund. However, I donāt know about fees. I have the feeling that using CrowdCube might be more convenient from that point of view.
Anyway, as a side note, Iāll join the campaign when is live, regardless from the platform.
Thanks @rebekah, I wonder what took me so long to join, but Iām here now 
. I invested in companies I think have good growth prospects and have a great product. Possible disrupters in the industry or have a nice niche.
Haha @edoardomoreni im pretty sure I was one of those 100 . It was a very good event.