Wealth-tech Pioneer, Prosper, Partners with Crowdcube to Offer Investment Opportunity Alongside Fintech Trailblazers

Prosper, the innovative wealth-tech firm, has made a significant announcement, granting early access to its crowdfunding campaign and extending an open invitation to the public to join the movement aimed at reshaping the wealth industry in favor of customers.

In an exclusive collaboration with Crowdcube, Prosper has initiated a crowdfunding round that provides a distinctive opportunity for individuals to invest alongside renowned founders, investors, and operators in the fintech realm. Notable figures among Prosper’s current shareholders include Tom Blomfield, Monzo’s founder; Matt Cooper, co-founder of Capital One; and Phil Bungey, former COO of robo-advisor Nutmeg, alongside founders of prominent fintechs such as WorldFirst, Embark, Azimo, Tandem Bank, and more.

Having opened its doors to founding members just a few months ago, Prosper has experienced rapid growth, introducing Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), Individual Savings Account (ISA), and general investment accounts for its members. The ongoing funding round invites customers to actively participate in Prosper’s mission to revolutionize wealth management, redistributing financial control back to individuals and positioning itself as the first wealth brand people trust and love.

Prosper’s Three Pillars of Customer-Centric Proposition:

1. Highest Cash Interest Rates: Prosper is set to offer some of the highest cash interest rates in the market, ensuring transparency for users regarding potential earnings. The platform commits to keeping members informed of rate changes, preventing them from missing out on better deals, regardless of the underlying bank.
2. Zero-Cost Index Funds: Already live with zero-cost index funds from major asset managers like Vanguard, Blackrock, and Fidelity, Prosper aims to eliminate charges for certain assets, maximizing the returns for its members.
3. Access to Private Market Investments: Prosper plans to provide access to private market investments for sophisticated, high-net-worth individuals, emphasizing their potential to outperform public market alternatives and form a crucial part of future-century portfolios.

Nick Perrett, CEO of Prosper, expressed, “It’s time that the people who help you with your money are motivated to keep more in your pocket, not theirs.” Perrett highlighted the long-standing issues of high, hidden fees and outdated technology in the industry, emphasizing Prosper’s commitment to disrupting the wealth management sector and returning benefits to its members.

Prosper welcomes supporters to invest in the crowdfunding campaign, with investment options ranging from £118 to £500,000. The low threshold aims to ensure broad community participation, allowing as many Prosper customers as possible to be part of the movement to disrupt wealth for the next generation.

Individuals interested in joining Prosper’s revolutionary initiative can sign up for early access here.

Cautionary Note: Prosper issues a crowdfunding risk warning, advising potential investors to be prepared for the high-risk nature of this investment and acknowledging the unlikely protection in case of unforeseen challenges. Interested parties are urged to take two minutes to learn more.

Where to next for commercial real estate? While some commentators are spinning tales of gloom and doom, commercial real estate professional Nick Millican isn’t so pessimistic. There are challenges ahead, to be sure, he says. But real estate over the long term is always a good bet.

While many market analysts and economic commentators focus on the near term — looking barely a quarter ahead on their forecasts — Millican takes a different approach. He looks to the long term. And when you look long term, commercial real estate has a bright future, he predicts — thanks to mean reversion.

Mean reversion is a theory which holds that asset price volatility and historical returns will eventually revert over the long run to an average level of a dataset. In short, says Millican, commercial real estate will typically always grow — especially from a position when assets are priced below their value, which has been the case with commercial real estate for the past few years.

That’s not to say that there won’t be hurdles along the way. As well as its tremendous effects on health and society, the COVID pandemic has had a seismic impact on not only the economy generally, but commercial real estate specifically, Millican admits.

There Has Been a Change — but There Will Be Another

How we view and use office space has changed dramatically in the past few years. During the pandemic, the workforce en masse was forced out of its places of business. As people began going back to the office in subsequent years, they returned with completely different views than the ones they commonly held in 2019. No longer did office attendance seem compulsory. No longer did commuting for hours every week seem like something you had to do. As a result, employees became more discerning about their place of employment and developed a lower tolerance for low-quality offices. As a result, businesses have had to entirely rethink their office space.

“In the years leading up to the 2020 global pandemic, for a long time office space was seen by a lot of mainstream corporate clients as a cost centre where their real estate team’s job was to lower the cost per desk and drive efficiency out of it,” explained Millican. “And so you ended up with office workers being crammed into very dense open-plan space — typically, not great-quality offices.”

For employees, such space is no longer attractive. And since they increasingly have the choice to work from home (if their current employer doesn’t offer it, employees are now more likely to simply leave), businesses have had to adapt. So, too, have the commercial real estate providers offering office space to prospective tenants, says Millican.

“There’s been a fairly vociferous reaction against many of the old office space criteria because it’s hard enough to get people to come back to the office,” says Nick Millican. “I don’t think we will ever get back to exactly the way things were in 2019. One of the things that the pandemic has made employers do is think, ‘If we are going to drag our staff 45 minutes away from their house to come and work, then we have to do a better job of making that place somewhere they’d like to be.’”

But while these issues may continue to be a sticking point for commercial real estate providers, Millican thinks that over the long term, the future still looks bright for the sector. Even over the short and medium terms, Nick Millican sees these challenges not as brick walls, but as hurdles that can be overcome by smart operators who can differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

Why Real Estate Grows in Value Over the Long Term

As an asset, real estate, over the long term has always been a good bet. Given a long enough time frame, the growth and value curve for commercial real estate always heads upward, says Nick Millican. Commercial real estate is one of the best case studies of mean reversion for any investable market.

The concept of mean reversion is one that’s widely used in many financial time series datasets, including price, earnings, and book value. The idea, Millican explains, is that when an asset’s current market price is less than its average past price, it’s considered an attractive asset to purchase. Conversely, if the current price of an asset is above the average, it’s expected to fall. In the stock market, traders and investors use mean reversion as a way to help them time their trading and investment strategies.

Mean reversion, says Millican, suggests that current asset prices and volatility of commercial real estate will eventually revert to their long-term average levels. And those long-term average levels have an upward growth trajectory.

Confident of the Future, Nick Millican Is Still Mindful of the Present

It’s true, however, says Millican, that 2023 has proved itself a formidable year for investing in commercial real estate. In the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. in particular, the market has been struggling with factors, including low levels of demand, low occupation rates, concerns about the future, and the influence of high-interest rates.

In the second quarter of 2023, the sector saw a slowdown in leasing velocity in certain sectors. In the U.S., bank failures such as Silicon Valley Bank and the First Republic created a sense of unease in the market since many commercial real estate providers in that sector rely on small banks for capital. This situation led to speculation about the future direction of commercial real estate.

Yet professionals like Nick Millican note that some market analysts are predicting that the commercial property market will recover in 2024 as a lack of development supply, the move toward sustainable buildings, and the reopening of the Chinese economy will support activity, even as working habits remain shaken up by the pandemic.

The path ahead for savvy real estate operators, says Millican, is to offer tenants and prospects the types of properties they want now and in the future.

For Nick Millican, that means higher-quality office spaces in popular business centres. It means focusing on providing collaborative space for team meetings, rather than rows of unattractive cubicles.

“I predict there will be less of the suburban office parks,” he says. “But the offices within city centres should survive.”

In today’s dynamic business landscape, pricing strategies play a pivotal role in determining a company’s success. The advent of advanced pricing tools has revolutionized how businesses set, monitor, and adjust their prices to stay competitive.

In a moment when we are immersed in tons of data, and everything revolves around that, having a platform in which you can monitor prices, sales, and profitability is essential for an efficient market strategy and results.

Pricing tools features:

• Real-time pricing analysis: Real-time pricing analysis equips businesses to dynamically adjust their prices based on immediate market changes, optimise profit margins, and strategically position themselves in response to competitor pricing strategies. This ensures that businesses stay agile and aligned with market dynamics, facilitating quick and informed pricing decisions.
• Competitor benchmarking: Competitor benchmarking allows businesses to strategically set prices by comparing them with competitors, ensuring alignment with market expectations. By identifying market trends, developing effective promotional strategies, and understanding competitive positioning, businesses can make informed decisions to stand out in the market and respond proactively to shifts in competitor pricing strategies.
• Data visualization: Data visualization simplifies complex pricing data, enabling quick decision-making by presenting key trends and patterns at a glance. Businesses can identify anomalies, such as spikes in competitor prices, swiftly adapt to market conditions, and communicate pricing insights effectively within the organization. Visualization tools enhance collaboration, providing a clear and concise way to convey pricing strategies and insights to various stakeholders fostering a more streamlined decision-making process.

The ongoing digital transformation has ushered in a new era of data-driven decision-making, and pricing tools have become essential in navigating this complexity. Advanced algorithms and machine learning integrated into pricing tools enable businesses to analyse vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and predict market trends. This predictive capability allows companies to proactively adjust pricing strategies to meet changing consumer demands, respond to competitive moves, and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

Furthermore, pricing tools are at the forefront of incorporating innovative strategies to stay competitive. Dynamic pricing, personalized pricing models, and subscription-based pricing are among the trends reshaping traditional pricing structures. Dynamic pricing, influenced by real-time market conditions, allows businesses to optimize prices dynamically, while personalized pricing models leverage customer data to tailor pricing strategies to individual preferences. Subscription-based pricing, popularized by the rise of subscription services, offers predictability for both businesses and consumers. These advancements reflect the adaptability of pricing tools and underscore their role in shaping contemporary business strategies. As businesses continue to navigate a rapidly changing landscape, pricing tools equipped with predictive analytics and innovative pricing models will remain indispensable in staying ahead of the curve.