A second crowdfunding pitch for TV channel Property TV has been pulled within months.
Property TV, which is viewable on the Sky platform, emphasised that this will make no difference to its future.
It had reached 58% of its £100,000 target, which it says would have helped pay for marketing and content.
However, crowdfunding website Seedrs has now pulled the pitch, it was yesterday confirmed by Property TV co-founder Michael Hammond.
The company, which launched this summer, had an earlier crowdfunding pitch pulled by another platform, Crowdcube, in the spring.
That fund had attracted a potential £320,000 in investment, exceeding its target by 58%.
However, the cash was never collected from investors after Crowdcube pulled the pitch. It explained to would-be investors: “After the close of the Property TV pitch, issues about the management of the company came to light that we felt materially affected the pitch.
“Following enhanced due diligence, Crowdcube has made the difficult decision to cancel the pitch and not to collect investors’ money.”
It went into no further detail and did not clarify its concerns and to whom these related.
Ben Rogers, co-founder of Property TV and former estate agent, was declared bankrupt on May 5 owing money to people following a succession of property investment businesses.
According to the Companies House website, Rogers has been director of four other property TV ventures, all of which he has left.
On his LinkedIn profile, Rogers says: “I’ve invested in the property industry since the ‘turn of the century’ and have pretty much done everything property related apart from invest overseas.”
However, despite the latest crowdfunding being pulled, co-founder Michael Hammond told EYE yesterday that the future of the firm was not in doubt.
He said: “The crowdfunding was for marketing and content: it does not affect the viability of the company whatsoever.
“Since launch in June the company has exceeded our expectations. We already have around 150,000 viewers tuning in every day and the company is going from strength-to-strength.”
Hammond would not confirm if Property TV would be looking for crowdfunding for a third time.
Seedrs has not responded to requests for a comment.
Programmes on the channel include Sarah Beeny’s Restoration Nightmare and Dream Homes, plus specially made programmes for the Tenant’s Voice which feature appearances by ARLA.
Comments (6)
Crowdcube will pull a pitch if issues about the management of the company come to light will they? Interesting! What happens if the valuation of a firm is exaggerated beyond comprehension or projections supporting a pitch are so incredible they exceed anything JK Rowling could dream up? How about if the firm itself whacks in half the cash with no explanation of why existing investors would invest through the pitch and pay unnecessary fees for doing so?
A few pitches recently have me staggered at the audacity of some firms, the stupidity of investors and the unhealthy tolerance of Crowd funders to allow anyone to claim anything.
What ought to be a good and sensible route to funding has been hijacked by those who prey on the stupid.
Totally agree. I think in the coming years when people start to really see their investments flounder with some of the companies they’ve invested in there will be much tighter legislation applied to the industry of crowd funding.
Not sure it is going to take years for investments to fail to meet targets or projections.
I have a suspicion that one recent pitch was crowd funding to replace a very large sum borrowed. The bare minimum supplied financials and a hastily redacted profile on Endole indicated a barge pole investment.
On that particular pitch the income projections exceeded Deloitte Fast 50 performances 10 fold, such exaggerated claims don’t take years to unravel.
If you cast your mind back to one of the early stories on Eye a similar investment predicted to hit £25 million profit within 2 years we have only got 6 months to see if it will happen on that.
Casting your mind back again just 12 months we were told one firm would easy hit some big numbers in just a year, that firm is struggling to give away free listings. There’s not much money in that!
While most small and independent firms are showing a rise in profits, I have yet to find a positive growth curve in any of these funded firms, the financials do show increases but invariably there has been a borrow or funding round that explains all.
In a free economy its up to the investor to do due dilligence on the company concerned before commiting the money. This has been happening in the shares market since my dad was a lad, the only difference with crowd funding is that individuals get a chance to invest at a level that usualy reserved for professional investors /institutions.
Only with crowd funding what Investors thought they were investing in doesn’t have to be. 14 days after the cash is handed over the firm is free to do what it wants with the money.
danny,
IF your parents or grandparents had savings, they heard an investment that they thought was solid.
E.G. (lets leave agency a side), Lets say a manufacturing firm wanted to raise 500k for new machinery to for fill an order that will lead to future orders which will in turn grow turn over an profitability.
Your loved ones invest, the pitch closes and 500k is raised. The 14 day cooling off period expires. The owner of the manufactoring firm now does not want to invest in the machinary. Instead he feels his company car needs to be updated to a brand new Jag, also thinks he deserves to refurb his office, and also feels he has worked hard this year and decided to pay himself a bonus – All of which comes from the 500k invested (partly by your loved ones).
Is this fair? is this really about diligence?
There is a reason crowd funding is in place, usually its too high a risk for banks or savvy investors.
Put it another way, if you were in a pub a bloke said “Gimme 20 grand i can turn it into 40 grand for you” would you invest? same principle.