It’s a dud - just been sent this example of what investors will get:
Mr Smith invested £1,000 in the November 2017 Round at a price per share of £0.05 in exchange for 20,000 Ordinary Shares. Mr Smith will be paid £131.60 as part of the Initial Payment and £115.60 for the Deferred Payment (although the latter is subject to claims and may be issued as shares in the Proposed Buyer instead; and
Mr Smith invested £1,000 in the August 2019 Round at a price per share of £0.06 in exchange for 16,667 Ordinary Shares. Mr Smith will be paid £109.67 as part of the Initial Payment and £96.34 for the Deferred Payment (although the latter is subject to claims and may be issued as shares in the Proposed Buyer instead.
The deferred payment is due in 2024.
Now that is painful.
Any news about the buyer?
Nothing - not named.
Dear Investors,
I’m writing this email to provide context around the sale of Money Dashboard which completed on the 28th of February 2022, some specifics on the deal and why communication has been limited during the process. I appreciate that the outcome is disappointing for shareholders, and the lack of updates has caused frustration, so please let me explain.
The Money Dashboard business has not developed as expected over the past 2 years. Although there has been considerable technological development, the growth in revenue has been disappointing. That growth has not been enough to support the associated costs of running the business.
The business model of monetising the platform through the sale of anonymised data stalled due to the lack of growth in the active user base. Whilst we succeeded in acquiring users, keeping users engaged has been difficult. The launch of the newer app (Neon) was an attempt to resolve this issue by appealing to a mass market audience, but unfortunately the retention rates of this product were very similar to the original app (Classic). Our conclusion is that money management apps suffer from naturally low retention rates. This issue has been exacerbated by the Open Banking requirement for users to re-authenticate their accounts every 90 days, creating further friction in the journey.
In short, Money Dashboard failed to reach the scale necessary to support the costs of the business.
I took over as CEO in March 2021, and soon after we raised £929k as part of the Future Fund’s convertible loan note scheme. My focus was to reach profitability through cost management and diversifying the revenue. Although we were successful in reducing costs, diversifying the revenue proved more challenging, particularly with a smaller staff base.
By the final quarter of 2021, Money Dashboard had 9 months of cash runway. The board believed that raising additional growth equity would be challenging given the performance of the business, so it was decided to contact potential acquirors. The process we initiated built on work undertaken during 2020. At that time an advisor led process to sell the Company identified a small number of interested parties, but produced no actual offers. The parties who had shown an interest in acquiring Money Dashboard were contacted and a headline offer of £8m was received. The Company’s board were satisfied that this offer represents the best terms achievable given the Company’s limited cash runway.
With the exception of the convertible loan note holders, the £8m consideration resulted in all equity shareholders receiving less than their initial investment. The holders of the convertible loan notes agreed to reduce the amount they receive in order to increase the distribution to equity shareholders. The deal was accepted by the majority of equity shareholders on 15 February 2022, and the remaining shareholders were dragged as a result. For specifics on the amount distributed to equity shareholders please refer to the drag notification issued on, or shortly after the 17th of February.
For EIS investors, particularly those who invested in the 2019 round, the timing is within 3 years which adds further frustration. Unfortunately, with cash running low, it was not possible to bridge the gap to the 3-year anniversary in August 2022.
Communication with a large investor base is difficult during a sale process. There are c.5k individuals who could potentially leak information. This could have caused irreparable damage and the deal could have fallen through at any point. The situation changed rapidly, and we were highly conscious of miscommunication.
Again, I appreciate this is not the desired outcome. Unfortunately, I’m still bound by confidentiality so I cannot answer questions directly.
This is my last note as CEO so on behalf of myself, the team, and directors, thank you for supporting the business over the past couple of years, and I’m sorry the outcome is not what we all hoped for.
Best regards,
Iain Niblock, CEO of Money Dashboard
Investors took a bath - pennies on the pound. We have no idea who bought the company.
Hang on, the sale has closed and the buyer hasn’t been announced?
Yes.
Used it for a week and hated it, not missed using it at all. I can’t see the new owners keeping it open long at all, not unless they’ve got deep pockets 
What a sad end to Money Dashboard.
FWIW I always quite liked it back in the day but then budgeting got baked into the accounts I use and well, I guess that’s why it went the way it did.
Shame.
Not a big surprise:
Dear Arthur,
Today, we are writing to you with an update about lending at Funding Circle.
After two years of the platform being paused for new investment from retail investors as we navigated and adapted to the Covid pandemic, we have taken the decision to permanently close the retail platform for new investments. This includes buying and selling loans through the Secondary Market. We will continue to manage your loan portfolio on an ongoing basis until all your remaining loans have been repaid or recovered. You will still receive repayments of interest and principal into your account which can be withdrawn any time by following a few simple steps.
What to make of this statement from CHIP ?
The rest of the year will continue to see record growth, but our product will do the talking. Our team continue to negotiate with banks to bring market leading savings returns (we topped MSE table earlier this year), but we also want to revolutionise the very notion of returns.
Soon Chip will offer alternative assets like luxury watches, cars and art that will change how people view investing… and our investor community will lead us every step of the way.
I read that as
“We’ve lost our purpose and now we’re just pissing investors money up the wall”
Good luck to whoever invested in getting any real return
I ditched Chip ages ago, they’ve literally no idea what they are doing anymore. The bloke running it all comes across as an ass too.
“Santander compensates customers after forcing them to use mobile phones”
Hope they aren’t using the word password as the password for their UK servers too.
UK Gov need to be putting serial numbers on drivers licenses and have the ability to ‘revoke’ them, and for companies to check the status with the state of breaches recently, to stop leaked IDs being used for fraud.
Not even Pa55w0rd?
Amateurs
If they wanna give me excellent score I’ll take it 