PledgeMe boss gives sceptics a serve

PledgeMe chief executive Anna Guenther has hit back at scepticism about her company in the wake of the equity crowd-funding platform successfully raising $100,000 of equity itself in order to increase headcount and build a mobile-optimised website.

NBR’s comments section lit up after PledgeMe reached its funding target within 48 hours earlier this week.

There were questions about the rigor with which PledgeMe vets the companies seeking equity via its service, as well as the validity of the company’s estimation of both the New Zealand venture capital market and its own profit potential.

“Those comments,” Ms Guenther laughs on the phone from Wellington – possibly through gritted teeth. “I actually had to walk away from the Twitter!”

Regarding criticism that PledgeMe’s offer vetting process isn’t robust enough, Ms Guenther iterates the company does “check on the directors of the company, including background checks”.

“But we’re not making decisions on whether a company is good or not, because that’s what the crowd does. It’s their decision, not ours, based on the documentation the company creates – and there’s set documentation that’s required.”

“It’s not like we went into equity crowdfunding without doing a large amount of research – I did my Masters on it,” Ms Guenther shoots back in response to suggestions PledgeMe over-estimated the size of NZ’s VC market.

“Our venture capital number was taken from the report from the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund – so that is definitely verifiable.

“But the thing about the private investment scene in NZ is, no one knows how big it is, because people don’t have to disclose that information when they invest in private,” she says.

But there is a large amount being invested each year by angels – around $50 million – and there is a large amount being invested by VCs.

“But the private sector is the interesting part – based on an Irish report released a year or two ago we know up to five times the money invested by angels is invested by family and friends, so it does have huge potential.”

That $6000 wage bill
Another lightening rod for commentors was employee remuneration. How could PledgeMe manage to get by last financial year with a wage bill of just $6000, along with $45,000 of other costs including contractors? they asked. Ms Guenther says the equity crowd-funding platform only had one part-time employee during that period.

“Being an online platform using technology to simplify a lot of the processes, we don’t actually need a huge staff,” says Ms Guenther, who confirms she wasn’t paid a wage last year but is now receiving one as the company scales up of staff numbers.

PledgeMe may seek more equity next year, she says, “but at the moment we’re just going to go ahead with what we have and get more amazing campaigns through”.