Now that Monzo is preparing to raise a new round of funding (Ā£22m, of which ~11% through crowdfunding), I would expect to see some updates about the company financials and future plans coming out soon.
However, since the first crowdfunding round - except for the information publicly shared in this forum - I havenāt received any update about the progress made by the companyā¦
As an existing investor (that is also thinking about continuing its investment again), I think it would be great if Monzo could share more regular updates about the performance of the company with individual Crowdcube investors, as it is normally done with institutional investors.
This could be done via email, through Crowdcube itself, or opening up a section of the community forum only to individual investors.
@tom / @tristan youāve done a great work with the community, keeping the conversation open while getting people involvedā¦ are there any major blockers in getting more transparency for Crowdcube investors?
Itās always interesting to hear more about Monzoās performance as a business & Iād like to see more too! On the plus side, Monzo are more transparent than most already
Thereās a couple of ways that you can find updates in this community -
If you search in this community for :newspaper, :tv: & :radio youāll find a large collection of news articles, talks & podcasts with insights into Monzo.
Iāve also adopted the Number of Monzo Users thread, to track any metrics related to Monzoās growth from this post onwards. See this, this & this post for example.
The team have started to create more infographics with insights so hopefully they will share more soon
Having said that, I wouldnāt expect Monzo to start sharing any special insights, exclusively for Crowdcube investors soon. Since any Monzo user (including the members of the Starling team who have signed up ) can invest, they obviously canāt share anything commercially sensitive with the investors, as itās pretty much guaranteed to make itās way to competitors.
So if you want those insights, I expect youāre going to need to find a few million pounds from somewhere unfortunately. And in the meantime, Monzo can carry on sharing itās updates with all users which Iād argue, is more consistent with their open approach.
If there are any particular insights that youād like to see, it canāt hurt to mention / request them thoughā¦
I thought Monzo would publish their financial etc for all investors, that way we can better determine if we want to commit more money.
The point below may not be as relevant as I know that BrewDog share their financials will ALL investors prior to any share sales and on a regular basis. They appear to be very transparent and do not seem to worry if any competitors have access to same.
Having said that, I wouldnāt expect Monzo to start sharing any special insights, exclusively for Crowdcube investors soon. Since any Monzo user (including the members of the Starling team who have signed up ) can invest, they obviously canāt share anything commercially sensitive with the investors, as itās pretty much guaranteed to make itās way to competitors.
I expect theyāll provide something along these lines ahead of the next Crowdcube round, as they did last time
Totally forgot about these documents. I think this will satisfy most people if Tom shares them again.
Totally forgot about these documents. I think this will satisfy most people if Tom shares them again.
Brewdog are in a completely different industry, but my point was more that they shared their financials (which I agree Monzo have and probably will going forward) despite being in a very competitive industry too.
Thanks for that
Even though, if it would be nicer to see numbers coming from official sources, rather than having to rely on bits and pieces and then having to guess.
My main doubt was as well connected to the fact that competitors might receive some information that you might not want them to know aboutā¦ but itās a choice to collect funds through crowdfunding, and that choice comes with some aspects that you should be ready to embrace.
[quote=āalexs, post:4, topic:7663ā]
I expect theyāll provide something along these lines ahead of the next Crowdcube round, as they did last time.[/quote]
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I also expect Monzo to release more updates on Crowdcube as the new round opens to the public.
However, what was shared during the first round was more of a pitch / business plan. Now that the company has opened up more (and itās preparing to launch current accounts) more concrete and regular updates would not hurt.
any company can have shareholder who may work for or have close contacts with competitors not just banks. The point made was valid as other companies (who presumably are equally concerned about competitors and protecting their products) have released updates on CrowdCube to let their investors know what is going on. With some it may be ad hoc when certain things happen but with others a quarterly newsletter. Not all incestors may want to sit on here all day digesting developments in the company
Thatās not exactly what I was driving at. If someoneās invested a lot of money & owns a large portion of a company, then obviously itās in their interest not to share commercially sensitive information with competitors.
If anyone can access that information for as little as Ā£10, then that incentive is no longer there.
Which point?
Iād like to see these updates shared with all users
While as a customer I like the idea of Monzo being open and transparent (which it is), I feel investors should be party to more information about company plans and projects that they may not wish to tell all customers and hence the general public. I am not saying they divulge the minutiƦ of something but give investors a broad brush picture of what is going on behind the scenes
Whilst I love this idea I do however think that revealing certain information could be seen as a breach in competition law and the banking industry is really clamping down on these things.
I donāt know what they can and canāt reveal but itās something to consider
) can invest, they obviously canāt share anything commercially sensitive with the investors, as itās pretty much guaranteed to make itās way to competitors.
) can invest, they obviously canāt share anything commercially sensitive with the investors, as itās pretty much guaranteed to make itās way to competitors.
