University of California at Berkeley MBA alum Danae Ringelmann convinced investors in 2008 that her untested crowdfunding startup, Indiegogo, was worth watching. By 2012 she was part of a movement that had persuaded Congress to change U.S. equity laws so that crowdfunding companies like hers could expand.
“The word ‘crowdfunding’ didn’t even exist when we started,” says Ringelmann, who graduated from the Haas School of Business in 2008. “That was the biggest challenge in the early days.”
Congress relaxed securities rules last year, making it easier for entrepreneurs to raise money on sites such as Indiegogo, Kickstarter, and CircleUp.
Ringelmann had a hand in winning over Washington: Her team wrote a series of case studies on the merits of crowdfunding, which they provided to the politicians who signed the new rules into action. The passage of those rules was one of many milestones for Indiegogo, which raised $15 million from investors in June and has launched more than 100,000 projects…
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