The controversial crowdfunding site Crowdcube has listed the founder of online estate agency Doorsteps as one of its five ‘entrepreneurs of the year’.
Crowdcube was at the centre of a heated debate during and after the collapse of Emoov, another online agency which raised millions of pounds through the platform.
Most controversially - and with the agreement of Crowdcube - Emoov sharply reduced its notional value near the very end of its final crowdfunding raise on the platform.
Another online agency that has raised money on Crowdcube is Doorsteps, which usually charges a flat fee of £99 but - in the build-up to Christmas - temporarily dropped its flat fee to £1.
Doorsteps was founded by Akshay Ruparelia, who is now 20 but was a teenager when he set up the agency from his parents’ home.
Crowdcube lists him as one of the top entrepreneurs of the past year and describes him as “a passionate and charismatic entrepreneur with a hunger to learn and grow” who is “determined to do what matters most to him: to help give a happy home to as many people as he can.”
The platform asks visitors to its website to vote for Ruparelia or any of the other four non-agency entrepreneurs it lists as its top figures of the year; Doorsteps itself is promoting the vote on social media.
Last year Doorsteps achieved more than twice its crowdfunding target - in October it got £870,000 from investors after initially targeting £400,000.
The campaign was backed by 662 investors for a pitch which valued the agency at £18m.
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Dearey me.
Call me stupid but how on earth does someone get to a valuation of £18M !
In a similar vein, and supporting the "...controversial crowdfunding site..." label, Oliver Gleave, the founder of Jupix, also used Crowdcube to raise over £180,000 in his new venture Monii Ltd and ceased trading 64 days later. The Crowdcube valuation was in excess of £600,000. Not bad for a company with no viable product and no customers! Just Google Where Is The Monii Money...
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