As you've undoubtedly heard by now, CircleUp announced its $7.5 million Series A yesterday. Surpassing Funders Club's $6 million "seed" round in October, this represents the largest raise by a U.S. investment crowdfunding platform to-date. A few notable stats for context. CircleUp has facilitated over $10 million in investments for 12 companies; Median raise of ~$800k; ~70% success rate for listed companies ...

A friendly forewarning: this is a long article. Please accept a summarized, and downloadable, presentation embedded at the end as my apology :-). Also, if you're involved, or interested in, the coupling of crowdfunding with higher education, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Imagine. Empowering each and every one of Ohio State University's 63,000+ students—regardless degree, age, or backgroun ...

Investment crowdfunding is going to disrupt and re-shape early stage capital markets. But not only for the reasons you've likely heard. There’s more to it. Crowdfunding is the product of not one, but two, strands of disruptive DNA. The first we'll call technical disruption, the Christensenian strand of disruption I suspect many are quite familiar with. The second is much different. An amorphous force much h ...

I'm excited to announce an update to our Global Investment Crowdfunding Database. I've appended it below and it can be permanently found under the Data section of our site. Here's the link: Global Investment Crowdfunding Database I've done my best to track the birth of new platforms across different regions. To be sure, it's a work in progress. The database now includes 140+ platforms, each classified by it ...

I speak often about the opportunity to couple investment crowdfunding with existing financial, intellectual and physical infrastructure. Universities have invested decades, and millions, in building all three. With access to biased and engaged capital (alumni); vast intellectual capital reserves (faculty and students); and expansive physical infrastructure (equipment, spaces), Universities are uniquely posi ...

In the last month a number of new accredited crowdfunding platforms have come online. They join FundersClub, CircleUp, and Angellist in facilitating private equity transactions entirely online. Here's a list of crowdfunding platforms that have recently opened their accredited doors: 99Funding (Startups/Existing SMBs) Collaperty (Real Estate) EarlyShares (Startups/Existing SMBs) RealtyMogul (Real Estate) Roc ...

Why will people participate in investment crowdfunding — what will motivate them? The beauty of this foundational question is that if posed to a thousand random people, one will receive a thousand different answers. Investment crowdfunding will speak to highly diverse congregations of motivations, from philanthropic to profit, and a thousand shades of color in between. This motivational diversity is the qui ...

It’s tough to navigate the competitive landscape of U.S. investment crowdfunding as new platforms come online each day. Looking to capitalize on the digitization of our private capital markets, they're positioning across geographies, industry verticals, investor classes and/or motivations, and security types. Who’s who? What markets are they positioning for? And how to partition accredited vs. non-accredite ...

What is FundersClub? FundersClub is an accredited crowdfunding platform live today. The company avoids the term "crowdfunding," preferring the verbiage, "online venture capital firm." Or, the new age of VC per say. But hey, let's not argue semantics. In a nutshell: it's an online funding platform that allows accredited investors to invest as little as $1,000 in pre-screened tech startups. Investors do not i ...

Monday's article highlighted EquityNet, an accredited crowdfunding platform with technology positioned to make the due diligence process more efficient for investors. Raising a big question: what exactly is the role of due diligence in investment crowdfunding? What are the mechanisms? Who's doing the diligence: the Crowd or the Platform? When in the process? And how? Fresh, and rough around the edges, bear ...