Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong.
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Risk Summary

Estimated reading time: 2 min

Due to the potential for losses, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) considers this investment to be high risk.

What are the key risks?

  • You could lose all the money you invest
  • Most investments are shares in start-up businesses or bonds issued by them. Investors in these shares or bonds often lose 100% of the money they invested, as most start-up businesses fail.
  • Checks on the businesses you are investing in, such as how well they are expected to perform, may not have been carried out by the platform you are investing through. You should do your own research before investing.

You won't get your money back quickly

  • Even if the business you invest in is successful, it will likely take several years to get your money back.
  • The most likely way to get your money back is if the business is bought by another business or lists its shares on an exchange such as the London Stock Exchange. These events are not common.
  • Start-up businesses very rarely pay you back through dividends. You should not expect to get your money back this way.
  • Some platforms may give you the opportunity to sell your investment early through a 'secondary market' or 'bulletin board', but there is no guarantee you will find a buyer at the price you are willing to sell.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket

  • Putting all your money into a single business or type of investment for example, is risky. Spreading your money across different investments makes you less dependent on any one to do well. A good rule of thumb is not to invest more than 10% of your money in high-risk investments. Learn more here.

The value of your investment can be reduced

  • If your investment is shares, the percentage of the business that you own will decrease if the business issues more shares. This could mean that the value of your investment reduces, depending on how much the business grows. Most start-up businesses issue multiple rounds of shares.
  • These new shares could have additional rights that your shares don't have, such as the right to receive a fixed dividend, which could further reduce your chances of getting a return on your investment.

You are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong

  • Protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), in relation to claims against failed regulated firms, does not cover poor investment performance. Try the FSCS investment protection checker.
  • Protection from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) does not cover poor investment performance. If you have a complaint against an FCA-regulated platform, FOS may be able to consider it. Learn more about FOS protection here.

If you are interested in learning more about how to protect yourself, visit the FCA's website here.

For further information about investment-based crowdfunding, visit the crowdfunding section of the FCA's website here.
GCV
Insights
Company News
Craig Peterson
· 3 min read
· Updated on

A day in the life: Ryan Absalom, Software Developer

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The latest member of the GCV team, Ryan joined us in October as a software developer, and here he shares his insights into his time so far as part of our development team.

Describe your role as a Software Developer?

In my role I am responsible for the front end of the projects that come to the development team. My process involves choosing the front end technologies we use and drive the product forward by creating the visual and interactional elements on the page and ensure its look, functionality, accessibility and quality is to the highest standards possible.

What are you currently working on at GCV?

I have just recently finished working on a rebuild of the Growth Capital Ventures site, focusing on the speed and quality to enhance the user experience.

Right now I'm working on the front end build for the brand new site of our recently launched investor club, G.Ventures, which is due for release very soon.

What does a typical day in your diary look like?

I am an early morning kind of guy, so I like to get in early, fuel myself with a coffee and get stuff done.

My usual day will be developing pages, components and writing scripts to help automate some of the more labour-intensive processes that are involved in my role. Everything I do is ticketed in Jira and tried and tested by myself before being passed to QA.

On more of a weekly basis there will be the occasional meetings here and there, along with 'show and tells' that give us the opportunity to present the progress of what has been done throughout the week.

Although it comes few and far between (!!!), in any downtime I like to learn about new tools and techniques, and try to apply them to existing products for continuous improvement.

As someone new to the industry, what’s your thoughts on the role of technology within it?

Technology these days is changing rapidly. A lot of stuff that would take hours to do in the past can now be automated and optimised.

In general, mobile devices have pretty much overtaken desktop in terms of site visits, so it's important we all adapt and create quality desktop and mobile applications.

Although controversial to some extent, I feel front end technology is moving more towards the quick, one page application look using frameworks such as React.js, Vue.js and Angular.js.

From a development point of view, this is an exciting time and it'll be interesting to see where we go in the future with these technologies.

Is there one part of your role you particularly enjoy?

Although I have not been here very long, there are a few things I really love about my role.

Firstly, I get to do my own thing. I can develop in my own way and add my own input into the applications, making the job much more interesting and enjoyable.

I also like how I can stick my head down and just code with little distraction - I am sure this is something that all developers want in their day-to-day jobs!

Last but not least, the people. It's definitely helped knowing a few faces from my previous job, but literally everyone is great and I feel very welcome here.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

My biggest challenge so far is ongoing - to create a front end framework that keeps code quality at its highest level.

So far a server made for fast 'on the fly' development that gives your code syntax errors and warnings should be fixed to ensure it is at top standard. It also includes a pre fixer to help ensure what is built works as expected on all browsers (we all know how brilliant IE is...).

This is pretty much a task that can never be complete as there are always ways to improve - difficult but definitely rewarding!

Outside of work, how do you relax?

I pretty much don’t!

Outside of work I like to keep very active (to make up for being at a desk all day) and I am regularly playing football or at the gym.

On a weekend I like to get out places. Maybe that will be going on a trip to another city or going to the zoo or a theme park, or simply just a night out (the weather picks this one for me for the most part).

Want to read about the rest of the team? See our 'day in the life' posts for Anthony, Billy, Emma, Dave, Dan, Luca, Sam, Jordan, Tony, Andrew, Sarah, Michael, Lauren and James.

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Growth Capital Ventures (GCV) is backed by funds managed by Maven Capital Partners, one of the UK’s leading private equity and alternative asset managers.