Sharing his thoughts about crowdfunding and venture capital, CEO of Indiegogo, Slava Rubin, sat down with Fox Business’ Jo Ling Kent during the Fortune’s BrainstormTech 2014 conference in Aspen, Colorado.
During the interview, Rubin stated, “We launched the industry in 2008, and we’ve seen considerable growth quarter after quarter since 2010. The reason we raised the $40 million was not because we needed the money, but to accelerate the process.”
He continued, “Really, we want to become as global as possible, as quickly as possible. We already send money to 70 to 100 countries per week, but we really think [access to capital] is going to be completely global phenomenon. Also, we wanted to make the user experience as mobile as possible.”
Also discussing how he doesn’t see crowdfunding vs. VC as an either-or, but rather he sees it as baby steps that lead to joining the “million dollar” club. “When you have a platform like Indiegogo, it’s totally open so anybody can raise money for absolutely any idea. We’re seeing a whole trend of companies. Raise money on Indiegogo, whether it was $900,000 or $1.9 million. Then they follow that up with an institutional round of $10 million or $15 million. It’s really great to use Indiegogo to get that market validation, to show that people care about your product and want to pay at a certain price point.”
He then added, “You get a lot more data than just walking around from VC to VC saying, ‘Will you give me money?’”
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