Rebel Energy’s first round of crowdfunding finished with a remarkable 335% overfunding. This huge vote of confidence from the investor community lets us take the strongest possible launch into the market.
We raised more than £500,000 from both small and large donations. Our target was £150,000 – and we reached that within an hour of going public. From then, more and more backers claimed a slice of the rebellion.
The average numbers of investors on Crowdcube is 269. We got nearly 700. As far as we can tell, this is one of the most successful ever pre-revenue raises on the platform.
Why? Well, our mission mattered.
Investor after investor told us that our mission was key. Rebel wants to end fuel poverty, protect the environment and change the way business is done. As far as we’re concerned, our social and environmental missions are the same thing. This resonated.
One investor summed it up nicely when they said “I absolutely love your mission and purpose. It is a brilliant concept”. In the words of another, “Congratulations on your already successful campaign. It is great to see more investment in renewable energy and also a company with a good social conscience”.
But it’s not just the mission. Investors were inspired by our lean and forward-looking business model.
According to our (relatively conservative) estimates, the domestic energy market is set to double in the next 15 years. And Rebel is perfectly designed for this major transition. In fact, we’ve rebuilt the energy supplier from the ground up. Gone are the lumbering IT systems, gone are the unfair pricing structures, gone is the disinterested customer service. Having automated back-end processes, our business is now leaner than our competitors at every stage of growth.
Not to mention the extraordinary quality of our team, which was noted by one investor, who said, “It’s an impressive proposition and the leaders and non-exec look impressive”.
Now that we’ve raised the money. What’s next?
Right now, we’re reaching out to 750 early customers to be our beta testers. This lets us test our systems and make sure everything works smoothly.
Before our full market launch in the summer, we’ll continue to develop our industry-leading automation. Plus, our smart new website will come out (which will include a few firsts for the energy market).
There’s a lot to be excited about. Or as one investor summed it up: “What a model for the future.”