Now that Monzo is preparing to raise a new round of funding (ÂŁ22m, 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 havenât received any update about the progress made by the companyâŚ
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 youâve done a great work with the community, keeping the conversation open while getting people involved⌠are there any major blockers in getting more transparency for Crowdcube investors?
Itâs always interesting to hear more about Monzoâs performance as a business & Iâd like to see more too! On the plus side, Monzo are more transparent than most already
Thereâs a couple of ways that you can find updates in this community -
If you search in this community for :newspaper, :tv: & :radio youâll find a large collection of news articles, talks & podcasts with insights into Monzo.
Iâve also adopted the Number of Monzo Users thread, to track any metrics related to Monzoâs 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 wouldnât 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 canât share anything commercially sensitive with the investors, as itâs pretty much guaranteed to make itâs way to competitors.
So if you want those insights, I expect youâre going to need to find a few million pounds from somewhere unfortunately. And in the meantime, Monzo can carry on sharing itâs updates with all users which Iâd argue, is more consistent with their open approach.
If there are any particular insights that youâd like to see, it canât hurt to mention / request them thoughâŚ
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 wouldnât 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 canât share anything commercially sensitive with the investors, as itâs pretty much guaranteed to make itâs way to competitors.
I expect theyâll 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 about⌠but itâs a choice to collect funds through crowdfunding, and that choice comes with some aspects that you should be ready to embrace.
[quote=âalexs, post:4, topic:7663â]
I expect theyâll 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 itâs 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
Thatâs not exactly what I was driving at. If someoneâs invested a lot of money & owns a large portion of a company, then obviously itâs in their interest not to share commercially sensitive information with competitors.
If anyone can access that information for as little as ÂŁ10, then that incentive is no longer there.
Which point?
Iâd 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 minutiĂŚ 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 donât know what they can and canât reveal but itâs something to consider