SeedInvest

Last updated
SeedInvest
Industry Crowdfunding
Founded2012
FoundersRyan Feit, James Han
Headquarters,
United States
Area served
United States
Services Entrepreneurship, startups, investment
Owners Circle Internet Financial Ltd. [1]
Number of employees
30+
Website seedinvest.com

SeedInvest is an equity crowdfunding platform that connects startups with investors online. The company was founded in 2012 and launched in 2013. [2] SeedInvest has focused on building liquidity in the platform by attracting high-net-worth individuals, family offices and venture capital firms. [3] SeedInvest screens and vets deals before allowing them to take advantage of the JOBS Act exemption permitting General Solicitation. [4] In September 2014 the company launched a partnership with Angel Investing website Gust. [5]

Contents

In October 2018, SeedInvest was acquired by peer-to-peer payment company Circle Internet Financial Ltd. [1] [6]

In 2023, StartEngine, a U.S.-based equity crowdfunding platform, officially acquired assets of SeedInvest, from Pluto Holdings, LLC, an affiliate of Circle Internet Financial. [7] The acquisition price of the SeedInvest was not disclosed. [8]

Funding

SeedInvest raised a significant portion of its own $4.15 million Series A funding round online in April 2014. [9] It was led by Scout Ventures, a venture capital firm, and a mix of other venture capital and angel investors. [10] An earlier round of seed capital was raised in 2013. [11] In 2020, it has raised a total of $5.1 million. [12] The platform sends start-ups for intensive verification; investors can participate for as little as $500 with a 2% fee. [13] Fees, capped at $300, are refundable if the listing fails to meet its fundraising goal. [14]

JOBS Act

SeedInvest founders Ryan Feit and James Han were involved in consultation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and in the United States Congress for the passing of the JOBS Act. [15] The JOBS Act included provisions that permit online equity crowdfunding by platforms such as SeedInvest. SeedInvest hosted the first Testing The Waters campaign under the new Regulation A rules for equity crowdfunding on June 19, 2015. [16]

Related Research Articles

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.

Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm uses its internal reserves to satisfy its necessity for cash, while the term financing is used when the firm acquires capital from external sources.

A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or 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.

Andreessen Horowitz is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of April 2023, Andreessen Horowitz ranks first on the list of venture capital firms by assets under management, with $42 billion as of May 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indiegogo</span> American crowdfunding website

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.

Adzuna is a search engine for job advertisements. The company operates in 19 countries worldwide and the UK website aggregates job ads from several thousand sources.

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.

Seedrs is an online equity crowdfunding company, headquartered in East London's Tech City, founded in 2009 and launched by Jeff Lynn and Carlos Silva in 2012. Since 2022 it has been a subsidiary of American crowdfunding company Republic.

CircleUp is a financial technology company based in San Francisco that focuses on consumer goods startups. Since its official launch in April 2012, CircleUp has helped several consumer companies raise equity, including Back to the Roots, Halo Top Creamery, Little Duck Organics, Rhythm Superfoods and others. General Mills has an investment fund that is partnered with CircleUp to invest in companies listed on the platform.

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.

Crowdcube is a British investment crowdfunding platform, established by Darren Westlake and Luke Lang in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AngelList</span> Website connecting startups, angel investors, and job-seekers

AngelList is an American software company for fundraising and connecting startups, angel investors, and limited partners. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge. Created by serial entrepreneur Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi in 2010, Avlok Kohli has been leading AngelList as its CEO since 2019.

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).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winklevoss Capital Management</span> American venture capital firm and family office

Winklevoss Capital is a family office founded in 2012 by Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss. The firm invests across multiple asset classes including seed funding and infrastructure to early-stage startups. The company is headquartered in New York's Flatiron District.

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.

OurCrowd is an online global venture investing platform that empowers institutions and individual accredited investors to invest and engage in emerging technology companies at an early stage while still privately held. Based in Jerusalem, the company launched in February 2013, and has since opened overseas branches in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Spain, Singapore, Brazil, and the UAE.

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.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freestyle Capital</span> Venture capital firm

Freestyle Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. General Partners Dave Samuel and Jenny Lefcourt are both entrepreneurs who entered venture capital after founding multiple companies. The firm was founded in 2009 and typically invests in 10-12 companies per year with an average investment between $1.5 million to $3 million. Previous investments include Intercom, Patreon, Narvar, Digit, Betterup, Airtable and Snapdocs.

References

  1. 1 2 Katz, Lily (5 October 2018). "Circle to Buy SeedInvest to Help Startups Raise Cash With Crypto". Bloomberg. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
  2. Clifford, Catherine (June 11, 2014). "Crowdfunding Platform Raises $4 Million to Fund Its Own Growth". Entrepreneur.
  3. Kopytoff, Verne (February 5, 2013). "Crowdfunding: Waiting for the Investor Pool to Deepen". Businessweek. Archived from the original on February 7, 2013.
  4. Harrison, J.D. (October 29, 2013). "New crowdfunding rules: The good and bad news for entrepreneurs and investors". Washington Post.
  5. Alden, William (September 18, 2014). "Crowdfunding Site SeedInvest Strikes Deal to Widen Its Reach". New York Times.
  6. Baydakova, Anna (2019-03-04). "Circle Completes SeedInvest Purchase, Paving the Way for Tokenized Equities". www.coindesk.com. Retrieved 2024-07-19.
  7. "StartEngine Finalizes SeedInvest Acquisition". Yahoo Finance. 2023-05-09. Retrieved 2024-07-19.
  8. Reynolds, Sam (2022-10-27). "Crowdfunding Platform StartEngine to Acquire Rival SeedInvest From Circle". www.coindesk.com. Retrieved 2024-07-19.
  9. Kolodny, Lora (October 2, 2014). "Startups Advertising to Raise Funding More Than VC Firms Are, Study Says". "Wall Street Journal".
  10. Lunden, Ingrid (April 14, 2014). "SeedInvest raises Series A". TechCrunch.
  11. Kolodny, Lora (June 28, 2013). "SeedInvest raises $1M". Wall Street Journal.
  12. "Top 10 Equity Crowdfunding Sites – 2020". crowdwise.org. 13 September 2020. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  13. "Leading Equity Crowdfunding Platforms for 2022". crowdfunding.guide. March 2022. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  14. "What fees do investing users pay to SeedInvest?". intercom.help. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  15. Summers, Nick (February 12, 2013). "SeedInvest launches its online crowdfunding platform". The Next Web.
  16. "SeedInvest Lists WayBetter as Reg A+ Issue to "Test the Water"". 19 June 2015.