CircleUp CEO and Co-founder Rory Eakin was recently interviewed on Bloomberg West to talk about his consumer goods equity crowdfunding platform.
After running the investment crowdfunding platform for about 2 years, Eakin shares some of his insight into the process. Â He states that companies that have raised capital on the platform have grown 80% YoY after having done their initial raise on CircleUp. Â He continues stating that gross margins have increase from 34% to 39% for the consumer products that have leveraged his site. Â Eakin believes that targeting consumer goods makes it easier for potential investors to do better due diligence.
Skeptical Bloomberg West interviewers posed the “Oculus – Facebook” question to Eakin. Â He responds that equity crowdfunding aligns incentives better.
Asked about his impression of Kickstarter and Indiegogo, Eakin states, “it’s a great market but a different business”. Â Union Square, a well known venture capitalist group, has invested in both Kickstarter and CircleUp.
Eakin shares that they have rejected over 3000 companies from their platform. Â They currently accept about 2% of the companies that apply. Â CircleUp aggressively curates their offerings to assure quality companies are listed for investors.
See entire interview below.
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