Equity Crowdfunding is predicted to be the next big thing in 2013, and Sweden’s FundedByMe has launched their Equity Crowdfunding platform to the global public, making it an early player in the upcoming emerging market on the equity crowdfunding scene. FundedByMe already offers a crowdfunding platform similar to Kickstarter, which repays investments through gifts or preorders. In comparison, an equity crowdfunding platform provides a mechanism to legally disperse shares of a company to its investors. FundedByMe has the uinque edge of beeing a website offering both traditional and equity based crowdfunding.
As the legislative process of the JOBS Act in the US is complex and slow, with framing the
regulation and defining the rules, the entrepreneurial financing roadmap has an unclear destination. If America doesn’t quickly implement a simple crowdfunding rubric, international platforms will be the beneficiaries. Swedish FundedByMe is already up and running and is offering equity crowdfunding. And it’s global.
David Drake, founder of TheSohoLoft, predicts crowdfunding will be a $1 trillion business within 10 years. If crowdfunding even begins to approach that scale, it will completely change the landscape for start-up financing. The world of entrepreneurial finance is changing rapidly.
“Whether you are a service provider, social entrepreneur, angel investor, venture capitalist, or one of the millions of people ready to become a small-scale start up financier, it is time to pay attention”. The quote refers to an article from Forbes – “Why crowdfunding will explode in 2013”.
The FundedByMe Equity crowdfunding platform launched as recently as a month ago and is already showing a theoretical capacity of over €16 million (20 MUSD) ready to be invested by the crowd. The amount is growing by the hour and consists of amounts as low as hundreds up to thousands.
“In the last year, since we launched FundedByMe.com we’ve proven that crowdfunding can also work and be big in Europe and the world. The crowd has together helped crowdfund: a hamburger joint, a train, numerous of CD’s and books, films, experiments, charity, heart-warming projects and everything between. Now we take the biggest step ever. We are adding equity-crowdfunding to a functioning system, not only because we can or because we see a huge growth within this market but because our clients have asked for it.” says Daniel Daboczy, co-founder and CEO.