Wefunder reported seed funding in the amount of $530,000 recently. The funding round, while interesting merits another look as Wefunder used their own site to Crowdfund itself.
Still prohibited from advertising, they used current state “blue sky” laws to raise $533,800 from 58 investors according to their blog. The amounts ranged from $100 to $100,000 and half of these investors were “un-accredited”. They believe they are the first platform to accomplish this! (if you believe otherwise please let us know)
Wefunder is not just another equity portal start up. They believe having “hundreds of investors is a good thing”. They encourage involvement and participation and recognize the fact that soon, “innovation is no longer dependent on a few thousand angel investors in San Francisco”. Bravo.
Wefunder has some interesting facts on their site, for example;
Only 3% or 256,000 of the 8 million accredited investors in the US are active angels, and those angels invest $21 billion each year
Once the Jobs Act is fully engaged in 2013 that 3% should grow dramatically. Creating an environment where more accredited investors (as well as unaccredited investors) can fund start ups – is an important objective for job creation in this country. It is also an exciting time for finance via the innovation of crowdfunding.