Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term seed suggests that this is a very early investment, meant to support the business until it can generate cash of its own, or until it is ready for further investments. Seed money options include friends and family funding, seed venture capital funds, angel funding, and crowdfunding.
A series A round is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchange for their investment. It is usually the first series of stock after the common stock and common stock options issued to company founders, employees, friends and family and angel investors.
Private equity real estate is a term used in investment finance to refer to a specific subset of the real estate investment asset class. Private equity real estate refers to one of the four quadrants of the real estate capital markets, which include private equity, private debt, public equity and public debt.
American Homeowner Preservation is an online real estate crowdfunding platform which purchases pools of nonperforming loans from banks and other lenders and then offers borrowers who want to stay in their homes debt restructuring options with reduced payments and discounted principal balances. If homes are vacant or families want to move, AHP offers deficiency waivers and incentive payments to cooperate with short sales in order to put the homes back into service.
MicroVentures is an equity crowdfunding website that offers investments in early stage companies. It connects accredited investors with startups, businesses and services looking to raise funds or participate in select secondary market opportunities.
Symbid is an online funding platform providing access to traditional and alternative finance for small and medium-sized enterprises. Headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Symbid was founded in April 2011 by Dutch entrepreneurs Robin Slakhorst and Korstiaan Zandvliet as one of the first equity crowdfunding platforms worldwide. Since 2017, Symbid operated under the license of Ilfa Group, that bought Symbid early 2019.
Confidentcrowd was an equity crowdfunding portal based in Phoenix, Arizona. The company was associated with the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 and was identified as one of the earliest Crowdfunding portals launched in the United States after the JOBS Act made crowdfunding for equity permissible under US law. The company is also noted for its unusual crowdfunding approach which requires investment seekers to undergo screening by FINRA-licensed Broker-Dealers before they can access potential funding.
Angels Den is the Europe's first and largest online investment platform that connects businesses with angel investors. It was founded in 2008 and is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
I-Bankers Direct operates an online funding platform that provides accredited individual investors with the ability to evaluate and invest in early-stage companies. The platform provides access to video presentations, offering documents, management conference calls, company slide decks and other decision-making support.
EquityNet is a crowdfunding platform that helps privately-held companies raise capital from accredited investors. Founded in 2005, the company is headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT.
Return on Change (RoC) is an equity crowdfunding platform that connects investors with innovative and socially conscious startups. Return on Change works with startups that operate in five sectors, each of which touches on sustainability in some way: cleantech, edtech, life sciences, social enterprises, and technology. An online equity crowdsourcing platform, RoC helps socially conscious ventures raise capital.
Fundrise is a Washington, D.C.-based financial technology company founded in 2010 that operates an online investment platform. Fundrise has been labeled as the first company to successfully crowdfund investment into the real estate market.
Junction is a San Francisco–based online investment platform that allows accredited investors to purchase limited partnership interests in funds that invest in major motion pictures. It differs from donation-based crowdfunding for film as members of Junction receive investments indirectly in the film projects rather than gifts, and the projects listed on Junction are already fully financed. Investors become limited partners in a fund that has economic exposure to the project through an investment agreement with one of the film's financiers.
Onevest, a New York–based investment crowdfunding site for startups that was acquired by Business Rockstars in April 2018, allowed entrepreneurs to raise capital from accredited investors. In July 2014, startups launching on Onevest had collectively raised over $66 million.
Equity crowdfunding is the online offering of private company securities to a group of people for investment and therefore it is a part of the capital markets. Because equity crowdfunding involves investment into a commercial enterprise, it is often subject to securities and financial regulation. Equity crowdfunding is also referred to as crowdinvesting, investment crowdfunding, or crowd equity.
Alternative finance refers to financial channels, processes, and instruments that have emerged outside of the traditional finance system, such as regulated banks and capital markets. Examples of alternative financing activities through 'online marketplaces' are reward-based crowdfunding, equity crowdfunding, revenue-based financing, online lenders, peer-to-peer consumer and business lending, and invoice trading third party payment platforms.
In the United States under the Securities Act of 1933, any offer to sell securities must either be registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or meet certain qualifications to exempt it from such registration. Regulation A contains rules providing exemptions from the registration requirements, allowing some companies to use equity crowdfunding to offer and sell their securities without having to register the securities with the SEC. Regulation A offerings are intended to make access to capital possible for small and medium-sized companies that could not otherwise bear the costs of a normal SEC registration and to allow nonaccredited investors to participate in the offering. The regulation is found under Title 17 of the Code of Federal Regulations, chapter 2, part 230. The legal citation is 17 C.F.R. §230.251 et seq.
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over US$34 billion was raised worldwide by crowdfunding.
Prodigy Network is an online real-estate crowdfunding platform that crowdfunds real-estate investments supported by capital from individual and institutional investors. Its platform provides tools for investors to browse investments, perform due diligence and invest online. It is marketed to international investors and to accredited investors in the United States, and has raised $600 million from investors in 37 countries.
Beesfund is a Polish equity crowdfunding platform based in Warsaw, Poland. Managed by its eponymous company founded in 2012 by entrepreneur Arkadiusz Regiec, it is one of the first crowdfunding platforms in Poland, and Central and Eastern Europe. As of May 2020, 74 public offerings (issuances) were carried out on the platform, for a total amount of PLN 47M, collected by over 48,000 registered investors.
