Campaign Success: Coinrule

Coinrule is a trading platform that allows users to set automated, rule-based cryptocurrency trades across multiple crypto exchanges. The company recently launched its first equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs raising over £530k from 658 investors. We spoke with Co-founder & CEO, Gabriele Musella to hear their equity crowdfunding success story.  

What attracted Coinrule to equity crowdfunding?

Many aspects, (a) the wide branding spread across several channels together with (b) being “validated” as a proper London-based Fintech company by being exposed to a specific audience/VCs and (c) the similarity between Seedrs customer base and our Coinrule’s users. It is worth noting that before this crowdfunding campaign, we hadn’t spent a single penny on paid advertising, so we could say Seedrs was the first relevant marketing initiative we undertook.

What did you do to prepare for your Seedrs campaign?

We enrolled on the Crowdboost; a programme run by Virgin Startups that prepares early-stage startups on all aspects of the campaign, from the initial idea to delivery and closing of the campaign. It was intense but useful. It gave us confidence and a path to walk through. It took around eight weeks to prepare for our campaign, and because of the programme, we were well organised; particularly for the Seedrs’ due diligence process.

Unfortunately, the Crowdboost programme is no longer running. If you’re looking for an alternative, check out ISQ Crowdfunding.

How much investment did you secure before launching your Seedrs campaign?

It was extremely important for our campaign to launch successfully as the crowdfund was in all effect a branding and user acquisition campaign. My Co-founder Oleg, and I went from rejecting a very bad “Shark”-like deal in March in the middle of a pandemic to slowly building the fundraise bit by bit, with small tickets – from business angels and small funds. The last private-investor ticket worth £37k came in literally the day before Coinrule’s launch on Seedrs, it was the smoothest one, it only took 48 hours from pitching to the actual transfer. Being determined, having a streamlined legal process, and talking straight works. In total, we secured £236k before launching the campaign privately in October.

Did you use any external support services for your Seedrs campaign?

Yes, we used a super video maker, and director called James Ward; a specialist in crowdfunding videos. Planning all the scenes, script, preparing the set and shooting in Greece, UK, and Czech Republic was a lot of fun. The result was a professional and effective video which helped us overfunded up to 209%. We also used a PR agency called Panpathic Communications to support with press coverage. The visual assets, pitch, financial projections etc. were all produced in-house.

What was the most challenging part of your Seedrs campaign?

Gauging the private VS public investments, especially, managing the timing from opening the private “pre-sale” to going live publicly. We received so much funding in private-mode that we had to rush to launch the campaign – I remember waking up that morning, checking the campaign on my phone and jumping off the bed running to instruct to open the campaign officially. We ended up going live with our target already reached, 101% which meant we missed out on the Seedrs “Companies Almost Funded” newsletter.

What do you think has been the key to your equity crowdfunding success?

Good preparation; in terms of brand assets and hiring a professional video maker. Also, we tried to reply to every request-for-pitch or questions within 30minutes. There was three of us from the Coinrule team managing the Seedrs page and replying. The only time window that was left uncovered was probably 3:00 AM to 8:00 AM UK Time.