Freetrade one of the UK’s largest retail stockbrokers is raising money to fund future expansion plans.
What is this Freetrade equity Crowdfund?
Freetrade has launched a new round of crowdfunding and is offering new shares to investors at a price of 924.99p. An increase of 138% over the share price at its last fundraising.
This will be the 7th time that Freetrade has taped retail investors as a source of working capital, but it will be the first time that European investors have been invited to participate.
The share price values the group at £650.00 million pounds and in the company’s own words caps off a period of exceptional growth for the business, which now has more than £1.0 billion of assets under administration.
Freetrade so far
Freetrade was launched back in 2016 and as well as crowdfunding, the business has accessed venture capital investors through series A and B fundraisings, which were led by the likes of Left Lane Capital and Molten Ventures.
Free trade has expanded rapidly over those five years and now has more than a million registered users on the platform, user numbers grew by nearly +600% in the last 18 months alone.
Speaking about the latest fundraising Adam Dodds, founder and CEO of Freetrade, said that:
“This crowdfunding round represents a significant milestone for Freetrade. We’ve built a passionate community of shareholders through six previous rounds, and we’re proud to be able to open up a new round today. As we move into Europe and beyond, we’re committed to keeping our community involved every step of the way.”
How much is Freetrade trying to raise?
Freetrade has previously raised £7.81 million from just under 5900 retail investors, this latest funding round will be open for one week and can be accessed via crowdcube.
The nominal target for the round is £1.0 million though it’s quite possible that the commission-free brokerage could raise considerably more than that amount if the offering is oversubscribed.
The latest crowdfunding round comes ahead of Freetrade’s launch in Sweden its chosen point of embarkation for a move into mainland Europe.
Investing in an unquoted startup and in particular, one with a freemium business model is not without its risks of course.
Freetrade has demonstrated that it can scale its operations and it will now look to replicate its UK success in Europe.
However, over the longer-term investors will want to see Freetrade convert its non-fee-paying members into monthly subscribers, as well as cross-selling a range of other revenue-generating products to the wider client base.
