Online agent eMoov galloped towards its target of £1m within hours of its crowdfunding launch on Friday evening.

By early yesterday afternoon, it had got to over the halfway mark, reaching £507,380 from 51 investors,  with the largest single investment £250,000.

eMoov, founded by Russell Quirk, will give 5% of equity in return for the £1m it wants – valuing the firm at £20m.

Its business plan says it has the potential to be valued at £128m.

The firm is currently losing money.

According to its Crowdcube pitch financial snapshot, it made pre-tax losss last year of £751,941 and expects pre-tax losses this year of £2,003,377. Next year, it expects pre-tax losses of £2,246,717 which will slow to losses of £442,909. In 2018, it anticipates pre-tax profits of £10,681,744.

In its pitch, eMoov says it was founded to “disrupt a broken, anti-consumer property industry” and predicts online market share to reach 50% by 2020.

It says that in July, 341 properties received 533 offers, leading to 246 sales, and that 48% of leads convert into listings.

The firm would grow listings from a current 3,529 to 40,768 in 2018.

eMoov’s business plan says that within the top 30 online agents, emoov is a market leader with a 16% share of all online listings.

It says Purplebricks has achieved five star ratings from 85% of customers; House Simple, it says, where Carphone warehouse founder Sir Charles Dunstone has put £5m into the business, has poor customer reviews and weak technology.

Sarah Beeny’s Tepilo is described as offering “poor customer service”. Estates Direct, whose chairman is ex-Poundland founder Steve Smith, is said to have “very poor ranking and listing volumes, they have also priced themselves out of the market”.

Hatched is described as “having problems with senior management, no SEO, very poor tech and lack of automation, mainly lettings focused”.

In its crowdfunding pitch, eMoov also reveals plans to expand into lettings within the next two years, potentially doubling the size of the business.

Its exit strategy means the firm would either float on the stock market or sell to a trade buyer within three to five years.

Our stories on eMoov’s £1m crowdfunding launch raised some interesting queries from readers.

We put some of these points to Quirk in an interview, in particular asking him how his firm could be worth £20m when it is loss-making and does not expect to make profits until 2018.

In the interview, Quirk also raised the possibility that he may have been approached by Countrywide, which is known to be looking at an online offering of its own.

The full interview follows this story.

The crowdfunding pitch is here