Online agent Doorsteps has reached more than double its crowdfunding target in its latest fundraise, taking the total amount it has now received from the public to more than £1m.
The firm, founded by Akshay Ruparelia when he was still a teenager, was set to receive more than £870,000 from investors as its latest crowdfunding campaign closed yesterday.
It had initially targeted £400,000 with a bold pitch claiming that “the high street is dying”.
The Crowdcube fundraising page shows the campaign was backed by 662 investors, giving up 4.61% of equity and valuing the company at £18m.
The largest investment was for £200,000.
Doorsteps raised more than £500,000 on Crowdcube last year.
It has now raised £1.3m through crowdfunding campaigns, but potential investors in the latest project did raise concerns on the Crowdcube messageboard about the business.
One said: “How do you address the comments left on Doorsteps’ Facebook page about inadequate communication and people struggling to sell/buy their property?”
A response from Doorsteps revealed it has promoted its former property consultant Sarah Carrino, an ex-Yopa and Sequence agent, to head of agency, adding: “Many of these (concerns) are based on small logistical issues or issues that our new portal and technology has now solved, or on its way to solving.
“We have identified many of these and will continue to address any concerns like this, especially as they are in the super minority of our customers.
“Further to this, we have recently promoted internally an estate agency head – with an even stronger focus on customer service and the bandwidth to address any concerns like this.
“This is supported by team leaders and customer resolution teams that are being built/have already been dealing with any process issues – to make the journey frictionless thereafter.”
Comments (26)
When the bank says no to you so you have to turn to unregulated ‘Crowdfunding’
Kinda says it all ……..
Trust me to think differently; given the choice of 2 disruptors one charges £1000 and has chunk of the market , the other charges £100, if i were an agent I would promote Doorsteps as the agent to use if I suspect I might lose the instruction anyway.
Use Doorsteps as a weapon in your armoury against internet listing firms who reckon they offer the same service you do but who only offer the same service as Akshay. At least he’s honest about what he’s offering!
There is a % of the population who want an FSBO ‘get it on the portals’ system, those people are entitled to use the very cheapest service they can.
I tell you this I’d be more happy to list Akshay’s properties than some of his sector colleagues
They have already been beaten to the race to the bottom 99 homes seem to be able to list your property for 94 inc vat!
Do you get a flake with it?
Please don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.
Those who fear change are the ones who are most often adversely impacted by it. I fear for the high street agent who refuses to innovate and adapt. Good luck to this young man!
Hello Akshay’s mum.
Hello Akshay’s uncle
Not sure that the High Street needs to innovate and adapt massively, the online pay anyway model hasn’t exactly proven to be that successful has it? And just look at the numbers – at £99 a pop the numbers they would have to do to actually make a decent amount of money are pie in the sky.
I would be proud if he were my son! He is a young lad looking to do something different! I always support those who have a go, those who don’t in my expereince are just envious and small-minded.
You want me to invest my money in your business? On yer bike Son. Oh, hang on, you are.
I wish I didn’t watch the video. just winds me up! they have 700 properties on the market currently. charging £99 that’s only £69,300. how is this financially stable and how are people so crazy to invest!?
He’s a good talker I’ll give him that.
And the video will definitely attract the naive.
And there in a nutshell….
You have the ingredients for successful crowdfunding.
The ingredients for a successful long term business, however, are in that pie in the sky.
I have turned that over in the last two months from a single office costing £8k per month
I know which business I would prefer to run.
My old mum used to tell me that a fool and his money are easily parted. What makes someone want to invest in crowd funding? Greed, Stupidity, lack of knowledge or naivety? Probably a combination of all 4. Clearly the investors have not done the simple maths on how many listings they need to achieve to make any money, they do not understand that if they did achieve sufficient numbers then managing the clients would take an army of staff so an investment of £1m is literally a drop in the ocean. Yopa this morning are displaying 11,500 properties on their site. They have so far raised £75m, If they sell them all on their highest fee which is no sale no fee they stand to make £17m in fees. Not really a business model you want to be investing in. Clearly it is only about raising cash by suggesting enormous returns which have no hope of being achieved. Selling property really is really only the bait to catch the investor. When we have such strict regulation in place for most forms of investment how is it so easy to con the public out of their hard earned cash?
“Yopa this morning are displaying 11,500 properties on their site.”
5618 on Rightmove – 3656 if you discount those “SSTC”
5613 on Zoopla – 3653 ‘available’.
11574 on YOPA website – 3655 excluding “sold”
So how many rounds of crowd funding have they had so far? And, more pertinently, why isn’t any of the money raised being shown in their accounts as fresh capital or as a share premium?
I think its bank of mum and dad who are funding this.
“especially as they are in the super minority of our customers” Who talks like this, apart from students who feel the need to throw like or super into every bleeding sentence..
Honestly, Crowdfunding is without question the next PPI in my opinion. Someone somewhere is not giving the full info to the rookie investors who are being promised something which we assume will never be delivered. (i.e. Profit)
But as we have come to learn, the world is full of crack pots, so Crowfunding gets to the crack pots, where as requesting a Business Loan from a Bank, you have to have a plan people can see.
I people are daft enough to throw money at someone who asks for it without doing their due diligence then more fool them.
They are going to need much more than this to survive. Some simple maths. Look to have circa 30 LPEs. Assume each need to earn min £30k. At £99/property they need to list at least 750 a month just to keep them happy, never mind Head Office etc. They are nowhere near that figure and £850k won’t be anywhere near enough to get them there. There maybe additional revenue in Mortgage and Conveyancing but there is a massive gap to fill.
Maybe the 200k investor is Emoov?
Absorb Cube and the investment money early in the peace 😀
The crowdfunding video is lame, and cheesy, and it’s very easy to pick on them. They’re making quite a few mistakes with their branding and model… But i’ll be honest: they’ve grown really well. That bloke seems fairly genuine, I wish them all the best.
It’s like backing a horse that’s already lost?
I wish I could find out who these investors are? I’ve got a couple of cracking Ponzi opportunities for them!
Adele once wrote a song called set fire to the rain.
This track should be titled set fire to your cash.
If PB shares are collapsing like they are why invest in a cheaper model that has less chance of survival?
When asked ‘Is your business fake? ‘ the company said ‘it doesn’t matter due to trading standards being inept and the gov’t. Seemingly oblivious to killing jobs and costing people £1000’s wen negotiating forthemesleves. Oh yes and rightmove dont care either. ‘