easyProperty has hit its £1m crowdfunding target shortly before its launch party this evening at the Natural History Museum among the dinosaurs.
By 5pm today it had raised £1,022,580 on Crowdcube from 224 investors, with the largest investment being £200,000.
The £1m will get its investors a stake of just 1.5% in the company.
Separately, easyProperty has also embarked on a round of fundraising for £6.5m. It is offering marketing partnerships to blue chip partners.
On Crowdcube, the venture says that easyGroup has been founded by Sir Stelios and property entrepreneur Robert Ellice.
Sir Stelios Haji-Ionnou is named in various brochures, but as a “brand partner” rather than a director.
He is due to be at tonight’s launch, which will be by no means cheap.
It costs £20,000 just to hire the venue, and although that includes security, loos and cloakrooms, it doesn’t include catering or anything else.
It must make it by far and away the most expensive launch in the history of UK estate agency. Purplebricks may have had a launch party, but if so, it was one to which Eye was not invited.
The first link is to the crowdfunding site:
This second link is to a video in which Rob Ellice, CEO of easyProperty, discusses the company’s online real estate business model that allows users to buy individual services.
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000310538
Comments (28)
I must be missing something. How many millions is this business supposed to be worth?! 191 rentals??? Be interesting to watch how this moves looking ahead.
Quick question about the 10,000 properties. There are currently 51 in London, 3 in Birmingham, 2 in Liverpool and none in Manchester. Has someone put Bournemouth up for rent? No – none there either.
I wonder if these investors have paid money on the back of these claims being made by EasyChris?!
In my opinion, there is little doubt that the "sign up" figures have been used to attract investors,,,why else would the claim have been made.. There is a big difference between saying people have expressed an interest in a "free" service and actually having signed up contracted, paying clients! And to think that he suggested the monitors of this site should remove comments made about his ACTUAL comments…staggering
@ easychris, maybe you're right and it isn't that easy (geddit?) to raise money via crowdfunding. But just try doing it the proper way via an IPO with a prospectus, paid-for advisers etc where you actually have to put in facts and substantiate claims made…..or face the consequences. Too much hype and tripe for my taste. I'm outta here.
You are going to get no other comment from "easy" other than they were genuine investors, but the fact that most had not lent on any other businesses through CF says otherwise. Having said of course some muppet called Peach Lettings also managed to also raise a few hundred grand taking over the Lettings industry from his conservatory so who knows. One things for certain I bet Adam Day is a bit gutted that his offering failed. To me raising money through crowd funding reminds me of my wife, before I married her she said I could wake her up in the middle of the night for *** anytime, after we were married if I tried that, all I got was an elbow in the ribs. You can promise the world and some people believe you, however as Hatched found out, once you've been around a year or two what you have becomes reality.
Well… easyChris – back as front page news once more. Not hidden in the Archives, where you can pretend that unanswered questions don't exist. But what you need to learn is that I, for one, don't let go. Ever. I repeat, FOR THE THIRD TIME, you have stated in another discussion "…we are not a "passive intermediary" we offer the full range of letting agency services and much more besides to come…". All well and good – IF and ONLY IF that is actually the case. Let's test the claim. Now – the property in Middlesbrough you had as your one and only has miraculously disappeared from view (no doubt you'll say you let it in a day…), so I'd like to pick up on the nearest to my location. You list a property in Arthur Street, Ferryhill, DL17. Please tell me – HOW was that property actually listed by easyProperty? Hopefully you'll get round to affording me the courtesy of an answer TODAY (seeing as you couldn't yesterday… or the day before… or the one before that… or are you going to be too busy making the sandwiches for the 'do'?
There is no point in asking mr easychris for answers to q's….he doesn't answer them…..so every sleazyproperty article from now is going to be totally ignored by me…..I don't often coin phrases but my last note on this one? BRING IT ON!
thanks @wilko today is a great day for our business which we will celebrate with staff,investors,partners and the media. We will certainly bring it on with the crowdfund raise which we believe will hit its target easily today and our other fund raise which is already looking like it will be well oversubscribed. We have yet to start any marketing in earnest yet but that will come soon enough,its great to see so much interest in this forum in our business I am sure after tonights big event you will have more to chew on……… 🙂
Chris at easyproperty you still fail to answer relevant questions. You have not responded to my question about customers that had "signed up" with you (you said 1000s with 10's of 1000s of properties) With the amount on your site at launch (not mentioning the appalling quality of the photos) your comments about 1000s of landlords signed up with 10's of 1000s of properties. I feel very sorry for the investors who, in my opinion you have totally misled. Like I said….I would have apologised if I got you wrong….but you continue to prove me RIGHT.
@wilko I am more than happy to debate and take fair comment even harsh comment,likewise I am free to respond or not, you are welcome to your views its a free world,your last post in my opinion crosses the line. I hope the moderators have along hard look at your post.Not big not clever and not funny. More to the point seriously unprofessional.
Take your own advice and stop posting re easyProperty.
Here's what EasyChris has said on another trade journal today…."We have never promised to list "10,000 properties" at launch, we have registered over 3,000 landlords who between them have over 13,000 properties and rising."
Chris, not meant to be big clever or funny…debate is a 2 way thing….you cant quote lies(the moderators will have seen your claims and quotes) and not answer for it when you are found out. Why don't you just admit that you didn't have the clients "signed up" and you made an error…end of. You don't seem to want to do that and are happy to carry on making people believe you have 1000s of signed up clients with 1000s of properties and you simply don't. You clearly can't (or wont) debate the fact that you claimed on this site that you had 1000s of landlords "signed up" unless that is the case ,or you care to change that statement….then we all know that it is what it is …Lies.
@peebee nope I am dipping my ginger biscuits in my tea and yes the property in Middlesbrough let in 5 days after being with a high street agent for 2 weeks with no success. Your views on my business are clear I look forward to proving you wrong.
You STILL avoid my question. WHY do you refuse to answer a perfectly reasonable question?? If you don't know the answer surely SOMEONE there can give you it to pass it on…?
Hope you didn't poison anyone last night with the sandwiches, easyChris… seems like your boss managed that all on his own with the opening line. Thing is, Chris, the dinosaurs weren't given a fighting chance. A flaming object the size of a city dropped out of the sky at several thousand miles per hour and wiped most of them out – along with 80% or more of all life-forms on the planet. But easyPlop ISN'T a body capable of global extinction – you are NOT, and never will be, a planet-killer. You won't even cause a wobble in the rotational axis. And had the dinosaurs been given a fighting chance then it was quite possible that it would have been THEM standing around yesterday looking down at the @r$£hole of Estate Agents…
ps – I don't suppose there's a teensy weensy chance of receiving a reply to my now dust-gathering question, is there…
1.5% stake, boy they must be hoping for a big return and as the last decade has shown on-liners don't make that much money or succeed and will only be squabbling with all the other on-liners share of the market.
So 136 investors raised only 62% of the target. Not so impressive. Who is the £200k investor ? Unconnected to easyempire ? I think we should be told. Shome mishtake surely….
Hi @MarcH 2 comments if you think raising money is "easy" you should try it, I think you would change your mind in a heartbeat.
All of our funds raised this round come from genuine investors either first time or those who invested first time around reinvesting.
Well done to easyProperty on achieving their target. I have to say, I would have thought somewhere a little more dynamic for the launch could have been sought – the Natural History museum is filled with extinct species, a dead dodo and dinosaurs. Wouldn't Tate Modern or The Science Museum have been a better image?
Surely that was the whole point Eric; it is a petulant snipe at traditional Agency inferring that we are all dinosaurs!
I would make the point that some of the most efficient predators on the planet are surviving Dinosaurs, those with big teeth who have adapted to feast on a variety of dishes served up by evolution in an ever changing world.
Ah – I see. Worth noting that many Dinosaurs didn't actually disappear – some evolved in to birds by becoming leaner, lighter and more efficient. I learned this at the Natural History Museum. 🙂
thanks @eric I couldn't have put it better myself. 🙂
Now if only Traditional Agents could follow in their footsteps or wings as the case may be and enter the 21st century!
That's right Eric those at the bottom of the foodchain had to find a ways to stop being eaten, those that were already good at what the did stayed fairly much in their original form.
Tell me Eric if you had the capital available to you that Easy have would you enter a market sector where the business model is already showing signs of failure?
If I had their funds – I would enter a new sector. A yacht in the Caribbean sector where my investors would never find me.
Can I recommend Sidney's bar- Jost Van Dyke in BVI? You might well get found but after an afternoon @ Sidney's they will forget what they wanted you for.
Somebody must see something in this model else they wouldn't have raised so much money so fast. I still maintain that their website is a pile of c*&# and cost them less than a grand so I hope for the investors sake they change that at least