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Takes him to around 24%
That's a bit like going for a drink to him though.....!! It's more a token vote of confidence given the size of his holding which is likely multiples of that. I don't know exactly what percentage he retained.
Chesterman bought another $1m of Cazoo stock the other day
I have a decent amount invested - most important piece to me is the brokers financial strength - not cost. Plus ease of platform use - ability to trade all shares, tax administration etc. I don't know what freetrade is like for ISAs / SIPPs - will take a look at some point.
Yeah Dodl seems quite limited, basically Vanguard with a few UK shares
I see Freetrade had over £1bn AUM and only Hargreaves Landowne have more client daily trades.
I'm an AJ Bell client and an HL one - it doesn't look bad but a little limiting - FTSE 350 only. Probably ok for most people......but I wouldn't want to be limited as I have some overseas things in my portfolio and certainly things that fall outside of the FTSE 350......plus would be similar to what I pay now on my portfolio - depends how often you trade - not that much for me. If you trade frequently then way better for you.
Speaking of black box I wonder who the undisclosed deeptech investee is
Graphcore last raise was in Dec 20 at about $2. 7bn. They were burning a lot of cash at the time so maybe they are doing well as no raise since.
Their Supercomputer competitor Cerebras was valued at $4bn six months ago.
Graphcore are promising an AI human brain Supercomputer for $120m a pop by 2024!
Distribution channels look strong
https://www.graphcore.ai/partners
Freetrade - I see AJ Bell have launched Dodl which is basically a rip off of Freetrade.
Run from the same office as YouInvest. Wonder what their existing clients will make of continued charging for them and free trades for Dodl?
Great debate, many thanks. We will have a lot more data on final results and hopefully a chance to go virtually or in person to AGM and ask further detailed questions. On GROW I think the black box approach is hurting value recognition. I was scheduled to go to the AGM July 2020 and then COVID intervened. I once phoned GROW CEO for some additional info and he was quite guarded but accessible.
Ui Path is worth more than Blue Prism - just thought the all time high got well ahead of itself. Decent company long term. But valuation still looks a little toppy.
The bank I have a current account with is good for that. It's rubbish for savings as it's rates are bad, so I have a minimal savings balance with it - but it can do that too. I have my mortgage with another provider as it's rate was better. Most of my investments are held with two other providers (as they have the best apps / wrapper (ISA / SIPP) service etc. Again I could do these with my bank if I wished to be royally fleeced on dealing and admin fees. This works well for me. I get what they are trying to do, but will they be the best at each of those. It's no burden to me having different accounts - in fact I prefer different providers as it reduces my risk and reliance on a single provider that could go under in severe financial stress - it can happen. I wouldn't bank with Revolut at present - it needs to prove it can offer me more than I can currently get from my current provider (and of course I have to need what it can provide). The revolut savings vault rate is lower than I get elsewhere.
Ok You are probably right
UI Path and Prism are simply incomparable.
PATH have continually invested in their business whereas Prism thought they had done enough 5 years ago and effectively stopped investing.
Before the Prism offer came in I did a lot of research into them but every time it came back to the fact that PATH were streets ahead.
They have just poached the head of sales at Google Cloud and appointed him as Co CEO. They aren't standing still.
So they can use it sort of like a bank essentially?
Cazoo is you are right, one example, some there simply isn't enough information on. Ui Path was overvalued significantly at it's peak for where it is at present. Blue Prism was sold more cheaply, roughly a third of Ui Path revenues at the time and went for just over a billion £ from what I recall. All plants is another example - it's not really a tech investment - it's a frozen ready meal maker with a website - i.e. low margin, no barrier to entry as such. There are loads of examples. In the end it's the overall portfolio that has to perform. There will be great success, there will be significant failure. Overall we will likely come out at something like a 10-20% NAV increase over a 10 year period. My view is the market got way ahead of itself and there are some valuations out there that are way over the top. I will hopefully get the opportunity to buy when I believe they are priced more reasonably.
German or French Revolut clients can use it as a current account, savings account, mortgage lender, trading app, international currency exchange and whatever other financial services products they want to add.
There are 72 companies in the portfolio but you always want to rest your case on Cazoo.
If Draper had taken part in the Revolut Series E then you would have more of a point.
They are claiming to be sufficiently profitable to not need another raise.
Sometimes with tech you require a lot of early stage investment to get say the Revolut Super App optimised. Then it's a case of deployment and scale up where costs come down.
I think they see themselves as having the same kind of reach as a bank that FB has
It's not the rationale I don't understand - it's the price!! Let's come back to the Revolut price in 5 years or so. Growth opportunities are great - at the right price. Cazoo possibly isn't a bad bet if you believe it can suceed as an example - it wasn't a good bet when it was already priced for market domination despite being nowhere near that. I don't believe the market or investors were pricing risk correctly - i.e. the substantial risk that an investment will fail. There is always that risk when at an earlyish stage. It's not worth $50bn today because it might be one day. That risk has to be priced accordingly - my view is I don't believe it has been priced appropriately. For $50bn today there has to be a good risk / reward - i.e. $150-$200bn 10 years down the line - that is a big stretch.
The initial stage of significant value creation is happening off public markets with tech companies. By the time they get listed much of the value has already accumulated and public market investors are left holding the bag.
Sometimes it's a good bag like Facebook. Terrible IPO but those that stuck with it were rewarded over time.
The £2.5m investment that MV sold in UI Path was done for £44m. Clearly they own more and this will be down. I hold a decent stake in PATH buying between 18-20. I like the business without going into details. In 2 years time it will be worth $5 or $100.
Look at Thought Machine. They are being used by banks all over the world and Morgan St and Lloyds wouldn't be investing if they didn't think it's a winner.
If Revolut get the UK banking licence then that would easily justify the value as it would enable the US banking license as well. I don't think Draper took part in the Series E. Below is an interview from them today.
https://www.altfi.com/article/9272_revolut-ceo-nik-storonsky-weve-made-almost-every-mistake-possible-and-weve-learned-from-them
And if you don't understand my rationale it is to invest in growth opportunities with a 5-10 year time frame. And I think MV provides a sufficiently diversified portfolio to do that.
I just want to understand your rationale. So you agree there is a good chance that markets drop another 20-30% and that VC funding valuations tend to lag those of public markets - but you don't expect any significant decrease in NAV. Why? Given significant pullbacks in publicly quoted technology valuations and the fact that private lag this why no expectation that our NAV will take any hit?
Revolut had revenues a little over £220m in 2020, even if it grows at the same rate as 2020 for 2021 I get to around £330m for 2021 but it's last valuation was $33bn - that makes sense - about 100 times revenue! I seriously think those investing in Revolut have lost the plot at the previous valuation, let alone a higher valuation, asolutely crazy with no real foundation from a valuation perspective. 'Other peoples money' comes to mind. Barclays is capitalised at £25bn with revenues of £24bn and net profit of £7bn in 2021. Citibank has a market cap of about $95 billion and revenues for 2021 of $72bn - but it's only worth 3 times Revolut!
Not expecting to see any significant decrease in NAV. VC funding valuations tend to lag those of public markets.
Biggest detractors will be UI Path and Cazoo . Think they offloaded quite a bit of Trustpilot.
Others like Aiven and Thought Machine should easily compensate for that.
I trust you read the FT piece on the Thought Machine funding round yesterday. Raise was led by Morgan Stanley, Temasek and Intesa Sanpaolo and included participation from Lloyds and JP Morgan Chase. So they have moved beyond VC funding and are getting backed by banks investing.
A Bloomberg article also said that Revolut is frustrated at the time being taken to obtain a UK banking licence. To the extent that the founder tried to get Rishi Sunak to speed things up. They are already operating as a bank in Europe. At the end of the article an insider said that they would likely proceed to another funding round at an even higher valuation than the current $33bn.
I agree that there is a good chance that markets drop another 20-30%.
I am happy holding this and will continue to accumulate.
I will believe we have the ability to withstand the headwinds on valuation in our privately held portfolio in 12-24 months, when we aren't posting decreases in NAV - I believe we will post some decreases in NAV and that is baked into the share price currently. If we aren't posting these I will be somewhat confused and a little concerned. In addition there is also the potential (and high likelihood) for complete failures as new investors fail to materialise for next funding rounds and the businesses either stop trading or are sold cheaply. Softbank posted one of it's biggest losses ever, Cathy Wood's ARK fund is down over 50%, SMT is down a similar amount etc. A relative Tortoise like Thought Machine doesn't double in value in 12 months based on fundamentals or profitability - how has the assessment of that business changed that much in a 12 month period - that's what I don't buy - it's purely what the next investor is willing to pay up - the problem comes when the next investor isn't willing to pay what is being asked - that's when the price pyramid and confidence crumbles - it's happened in the quoted market, private will lag. I think a lot of that is currently in this share price. If the Nasdaq falls further this will likely follow. Share price down 4% here as I write. That's very close to the £5 mark. I think it's wishful thinking to think this will be anywhere close to it's peak in the next 2 to 3 years. Personally - I think we have a bit further to fall, I can easily see the Nasdaq with another 10-30% off over the course of the next 6 to 18 months, maybe a lot sooner. I don't know what that would mean for our share price but it won't be positive in all likelihood.
We normally track us tec so maybe our dip yesterday not so surprising. Was really good news on thought machine 100% increase in NAV on a recent round d. SHows the strength and hidden value of our portfolio is credibly enough to withstand the headwinds on valuations more generally (at least of r our privately held portfolio. OUr public ally held portfolio is being decimated but GRWO assure us that is offset by increases elsewhere.
Our directors topped up in January between 7.45 p and 880 p. They must be getting as ticked off as we are with sub 6 quid. Ridiculous. There is no reason why high inflation will hurt sales. Indeed it will flatter nominal sales value on the same actual number. The covid big economic dip was good for sales. We don’t move with GDP up or down.
The only way inflation hurts us is the expectation that the risk free return will go up and there will be a general drain from jam tomorrow assets. I for my money think the stampede out for us is well overdone on this and we will therefore bounce back soon. We were never priced at levels that put net profit far into the future nor do we have too many many shooting star cazoo type start ups that went fantastically up fast but may encounter tough competition that limits growth or profit. A lot of our portfolio is the relative tortoises like thought machine that are chugging away behind all the froth and excitement we had in 2021.