Online agent ‘worth £12m’ raises £550,000 from almost 500 investors

Online agent Doorsteps closed its crowdfunding pitch at midnight after extending it for a week and going well over target.

The business had hoped to raise £400,000 but by the middle of yesterday had attracted almost £550,000 from 489 investors.

Doorsteps, which announced that it was considering a merger mid-pitch, also announced having a second formal meeting with the unnamed company at which terms of a potential deal were discussed.

Doorsteps, which has been going less than a year, claims to be Britain’s 41st largest estate agent and said in its pitch that it is worth £12m.

Its founder is Akshay Ruparelia and its CEO is Mahesh (Mark) Kotesha. Also part of the management team is Sham Golamy, who previously headed up Rightmove Overseas.

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10 Comments

  1. nextchapter

    I just don’t get it! Am I missing something here?  There are other well established online Agents, many of which are still not making money, and some of which had a similar set up of £99.   Doorsteps seems to be getting lots of press, raised £550,000 and is valued at £12million? The whole thing just doesn’t add up.  Anyway, £550,000 will disappear very quickly in the online sector.  It feels like one big con if you ask me!

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    1. nextchapter

      I think I’ve worked it out. It’s another venture by rich mummy’s and daddy’s boys and girls, who want to play at an idea! It must be!

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    2. AgentVX17

      Like two old business, Rich daddy will sell this business too. At this moment, they are building the books and media attention for next millions.

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  2. devonlondoner59

    As I’ve said before about this company, it’s a ‘fake it til you make it’ business.  The same spin as people who try and con you into selling aloe Vera for them promising you big bucks or social media experts telling you how you too can earn a six figure salary rehashing the same tosh to gullible clients.

    look the directors up on Companies House…the facts are there.

    just because you keep repeating the same £12m value line doesn’t mean it’s true.

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  3. surreyagent

    Turkeys voting…..

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  4. BigBoyEA48

    I really feel that I’m missing something on this one. In my area which is a very large town just South of London there is (was) one Doorsteps.co.uk instruction.  Sitting in the vendors living room yesterday she has now dis-instructed them after two viewings and two incredibly low offers since April so now they have zero instructions in a town where there are on average 20-30 new instructions per day! So what are these investors seeing that I’m not? Someone please enlighten me.

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  5. Trevor Gillham

    Big YAWN

    They need to get on the Daily Mail, the guy that was on Dragons Den thinking he’s worth about £50m selling chicken meals, spending all his money on PR.

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  6. Property Paddy

    Doorsteps: confessions of an on line agent, it’s a bit like confessions of a window cleaner except these guys clean out a lot more people and do it on line!

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  7. Vanessa Warwick

    All this does is confirm to me the sheer naivety of people.  Anyone doing even one iota of due diligence would realise that this is not an “investment” but I also have to wonder what due diligence the crowd funding platform did before offering this pitch?

    For due diligence purposes, after doing some digging, I found that the parent company is Upside Capital Ltd and it was only incorporated on the 30th December 2016!

    The main individual behind the company is Akshay Ruparelia, who, on the pitch on Crowd Cube, claims he has already built & sold two multi-million pound businesses.

    He only has the one Directorship at Companies House at the current time.
    https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/officers/CVr2EfPWr8jq_U58EPWrjR2mYgc/appointments

    His date of birth is given as 1998, making him 19 years old.

    The other director is Mahesh Kotecha and he also only has one directorship to his name.
    They have obviously not filed any accounts and the valuation seems ridiculous to me.
    I do believe intense due diligence is required in these instances as the platforms themselves may not undertake it.  EYE has the story of another Crowd Cube pitch that was pulled because of lack of due diligence on the part of the platform:
    http://www.propertyindustryeye.com/second-crowdfunding-pitch-for-property-tv-is-pulled/
    I have a number of concerns with crowd funding which I have expressed here:
    https://www.propertytribes.com/crowd-funding-too-easy-to-raise-money-t-127630176.html
     
    https://www.propertytribes.com/-sorry-the-money-is-gone-crowdfunding-t-127627114.html

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  8. StatementOfFact

    How ironic one of the people involved is called Sham.

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