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Freetrade is literally owned by its customers. We were crowdfunded into existence.
Average investment per shareholder is c. £1,000.
Average investment per shareholder is c. £1,000.
We started in 2016 by raising £169k from 143 investors https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade/pitches/b0znBl
Next, we raised a £1m 'seed' round from 1,113 investors in 2017 https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade/pitches/ZpDyPZ
The £1m allowed us to hire our first employees and obtain FCA authorisation to be a financial institution.
We got to the point where we placed our first real trade on the London Stock Exchange, before going back to our community in 2018 for another round of funding.
We got to the point where we placed our first real trade on the London Stock Exchange, before going back to our community in 2018 for another round of funding.
We raised £3m in 2018 from 2,063 investors.
This was the fuel to roll out the iOS app to our burgeoning waitlist later that year. We were a real stockbroker with customers!
https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade/pitches/b3M2Ql
This was the fuel to roll out the iOS app to our burgeoning waitlist later that year. We were a real stockbroker with customers!
https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade/pitches/b3M2Ql
Oct 2018 was the official start date, but @v18n and I were still doing the customer service in Intercom. We had US stocks in the app and an Android version by April 2019 - so fully launched that month, no waitlist 
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/02/freetrade/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/02/freetrade/
Growth was off the charts and we hadn't got revenue going yet, so naturally we went back to our community for support.
The demand broke @crowdcube's website. https://www.altfi.com/article/5325_freetrade-crowdcube-busting-crowdfund-like-glastonbury
The demand broke @crowdcube's website. https://www.altfi.com/article/5325_freetrade-crowdcube-busting-crowdfund-like-glastonbury
In 2019, we raised the maximum allowed under EU crowdfunding rules (€8m). It was in two tranches due to us breaking the site and very much still needing to complete the round quickly to fund our growth.
Enter @DraperEsprit.
https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade/pitches/lzLEpb
https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade/pitches/ZpvDyq
Enter @DraperEsprit.
https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade/pitches/lzLEpb
https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade/pitches/ZpvDyq
I was slightly allergic to Draper Esprit due to their investment in Revolut.
But @andrewjscott convinced me to come down to the pub and have a pint with Simon, Draper Esprit's founder (they're Crowdcube's largest shareholder). And we quickly put together a deal.
But @andrewjscott convinced me to come down to the pub and have a pint with Simon, Draper Esprit's founder (they're Crowdcube's largest shareholder). And we quickly put together a deal.
@DraperEsprit was going to invest along with the crowd, same share price, and bump up the round count to £12m.
It took a while to complete legals, but we put the two together and that was our Series A. https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/31/freetrade-series-a/
It took a while to complete legals, but we put the two together and that was our Series A. https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/31/freetrade-series-a/
Collectively, our customers and community are the largest direct shareholders of Freetrade Limited. I'm no 2. VCs are no 3. 
