Emoov raises £1.15 million in one day from friends, family and former customers
Crowdfunding campaign is being billed as last chance for smaller investors to get involved before the hybrid agency goes for an IPO.
Hybrid agent Emoov’s second crowdfunding campaign was launched today and quickly reached its target of £1 million and then, by the time England kicked off last night, had risen to £1,152,060, with 30 days still left go.
Today’s investors are all staff, friends, past customers and family who have been given first bite of the cherry, with the wider Crowdcube community to be given the opportunity to invest later on, but the campaign is being billed by Emoov as a ‘last chance’ to invest before it goes for a stock market listing.
Within the pitch document on the Crowdcube.com site, Emoov claims online/hybrid sector now has 7.4% of the overall estate agency market, up from 2.4% in 2014.
This latest fundraiser is for 1.10% of the recently-expanded Emoov, less than the last time in 2015 when it offered 12.3% of equity to investors.
On that occasion it also had a target of £1 million but then went on to raise £2.62 million.
Advertising push
Emoov says the extra cash raised in its latest campaign will be used to both fund an advertising push, upgrade its online platform and hire more talent.
The £1.152m raised so far today – which is likely to increase in the coming days as it is opened up to more investors – is on top of £6m raised from existing shareholders to finance the purchase of Tepilo and online lettings agency Urban, plus a £9 million equity-for-media deal across Sky and Channel 5.
“In contrast to our last campaign, we already have the foundations in place to put our sights on an IPO,” says Emoov CEO Russell Quirk.
“However, we wanted to offer one last opportunity for non-institutional investors to support the enlarged company, and to benefit from the anticipated uplift in value that our continued success is likely to deliver.”
