Crowdcube · UK

Mettrr’s 2012 crowd round: 9x for those who sold in 2017

Mettrr raised £100,000 from 25 people on Crowdcube in 2012. In 2017, ten of them sold £50,000 of shares in Crowdcube's first secondary trades, at a reported 9x.

Past returns are not a guide to future returns. General information, not advice.

The figures

Multiple 9x Realised in part

Platform
Crowdcube
Country
UK
Crowd round
2012
Entry price or valuation
£100,000 raised from 25 investors; the price per share is not stated
Exit or latest event
Crowdcube's first secondary share trades

Mettrr: crowd round in 2012; entry at £100,000 raised from 25 investors; the price per share is not stated; exit or latest event: Crowdcube's first secondary share trades.

The round

Mettrr Technologies, formerly GetSiteTracked.com, is a technology company. Finextra (opens in a new tab) records that it raised £100,000 on Crowdcube in March 2012, from 25 investors. That made it one of the earlier rounds in this list by some way: only BrewDog's scheme started sooner.

More money followed. Crowdfund Insider (opens in a new tab) says Mettrr raised £1m in 2016 from investors interested in its technology. We have not seen the price per share for either round, so 9x cannot be worked out independently here.

What happened

Most crowdfunded companies give their investors no way to sell before an exit, which makes this case useful for reasons beyond its size. In April 2017, Finextra (opens in a new tab) reported, ten investors collectively realised £50,000 through trades on Crowdcube, and two more realised £250,000 in a separate transaction off the platform.

Crowdfund Insider (opens in a new tab) reported a 9x return for those who originally backed the company in 2012 and chose to sell, with the gain coming after angel investors bought into the company. Financial IT (opens in a new tab) called Mettrr the first company to return money to crowd investors through a secondary sale on a crowdfunding platform.

What the figure does and does not say

The claim of a first depends on how it is drawn. Crowdcube's own earlier exits (opens in a new tab), E-Car Club and Camden Town Brewery, had paid investors through a sale of the company; this was a sale of shares between investors while the company carried on. The reports describe it as Crowdcube's first such trade, and we have not checked every other platform of the time.

It was small. On the figures reported (opens in a new tab), the two transactions together came to £300,000, and it was a chance to sell rather than a sale of the whole company, so we mark it realised in part: for the twelve who sold, not for anyone who held on. A multiple on a holding that small says little about what a similar trade would pay today. The figure comes from reports of Crowdcube's own announcement, and we found no filing to check it against.

Timeline

  1. March 2012

    £100,000 raised from 25 investors on Crowdcube. Finextra (opens in a new tab)

  2. 2016

    £1m raised from investors. Crowdfund Insider (opens in a new tab)

  3. April 2017

    Ten investors realise £50,000 on Crowdcube, two more £250,000 off it, at a reported 9x. Finextra (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. Finextra, April 2017: First secondary share trade completed on Crowdcube platform (opens in a new tab)
  2. Crowdfund Insider, April 2017: Crowdcube facilitates first secondary share trades (opens in a new tab)
  3. Financial IT, 14 April 2017: Mettrr Technologies realised its investments to Crowdcube platform (opens in a new tab)

By Raise Sonar. Published . Sources read .

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