Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows people to solicit funds for an idea, charity, or start-up business. Indiegogo charges a 5% fee on contributions. This charge is in addition to Stripe credit card processing charges of 3% + $0.30 per transaction. Fifteen million people visit the site each month.
Pozible is an Australia-based crowdfunding platform and community-building tool for creative projects and ideas. It was developed to help people raise funds.
FundaGeek was a crowd funding resource designed for funding project involving technology, scientific research, inventions and community support. Funding is provided through backers who make pledges in return for rewards provided by the project owners. Fundageek does not regard crowd funding as an investment or a debt instrument, and pledges do not involve any form of equity interest. The April 2012 JOBS Act opens up the prospects for "equity crowdfunding" however the SEC has not yet defined the required rules for participation. The industry expects this to happen in 2013.
Crowdfunding is a process in which individuals or groups pool money and other resources to fund projects initiated by other people or organizations "without standard financial intermediaries." Crowdfunded projects may include creative works, products, nonprofit organizations, supporting entrepreneurship, businesses, or donations for a specific purpose. Crowdfunding usually takes place via an online portal that handles the financial transactions involved and may also provide services such as media hosting, social networking, and facilitating contact with contributors. It has increased since the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.
InvestedIn is a crowd funding website for fund raising projects and charity events such as walkathons and celebrity cause-based campaigns. InvestedIn is also a technology provider offering a white label crowdfunding platform for commercial and non-profit use.
EarlyShares is an online platform for real estate fundraising and investing. It was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Miami, Florida.
Seedrs is an equity crowdfunding platform, headquartered in East London's Tech City, founded by Jeff Lynn and Carlos Silva in 2012.
MicroVentures is an equity crowdfunding website offering investments in early stage companies. MicroVentures connects accredited investors with startups, businesses and services looking to raise funds or participate in select secondary market opportunities. It is the only major equity crowdfunding site that is a broker-dealer registered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the first to take a portfolio company to a successful exit. As of October 2013, MicroVentures had raised $20 million, spread among 45 companies including Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp.
Crowdcube is a British investment crowdfunding platform, established by Darren Westlake and Luke Lang in 2011.
FundedByMe is a crowdfunding platform based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company is active in Scandinavia with joint ventures in Finland, Poland, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Singapore and The United Arab Emirates. FundedByMe's native language is English, but users can list their project in any supported language. The company was founded in March 2011 by Arno Smit and Daniel Daboczy. In September 2012, the company decided to focus their core business on equity crowdfunding instead of its original approach with donation and loan based crowdfunding portal.
The crowdfunding exemption movement in the U.S. is the effort to exempt relatively small investment offerings, sold to the general public in small blocks, from the registration and compliance requirements demanded of large public companies. Inspired by the growth of non-investment crowdfunding, advocates see such exemptions as a way to spur innovation, economic activity, and small-business job creation, but opponents see such changes as invitations to fraud that will target unsophisticated investors. The movement has seen success with the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which went into effect in 2016, and a growing number of state-level exemptions.
Invesdor is an equity-based crowdfunding platform based in Helsinki, Finland. The company was founded in May 2012. Invesdor has been reported as being the first equity-based crowdfunding service in Northern Europe. It operates as a matching service between investors and companies.
TrustLeaf was an alternative crowd funding service for startups and small businesses to raise money from friends and family using personal loans. It was founded in 2013 and is based in Sunnyvale, California. Anson Liang and Daniel Lieser are cofounders.
Onevest, formerly Rock The Post, is an investment crowdfunding site for startups where entrepreneurs are able to raise capital from accredited investors. As of 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 crowd-investing, investment crowdfunding, or crowd equity.
Eureeca is an equity crowdfunding platform with offices in Dubai, London, Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur that allows early-stage businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to raise capital from a group of investors, who range from casual and angel investors to institutional firms, in exchange for equity. Eureeca serves as an alternative financing option to more traditional financing sources such as banks and venture capital firms.
Good Shepherd Entertainment is a Dutch video game publisher based in Amsterdam. The company was founded in 2011 by Mike Wilson, Harry Miller, Paul Hanraets and Andy Payne, and opened its equity crowdfunding platform in September 2012. Gambitious' publishing label was opened in 2014 to offer developer-friendly publishing services to ensure a timely financial return for both investors and developers of their projects. In August 2017, Gambitious Digital Entertainment was rebranded Good Shepherd Entertainment whereas they ceased their crowdfunding activities and fully transitioned into being a publisher. Having been a consultant to the company prior, Brian Grigsby now became the CEO of the company.
PledgeMe is a Wellington, New Zealand-based crowdfunding platform which offers project and equity crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising small amounts of 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.
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.
