Charles Luzar

Quick Stats: WePay’s Growth In The Crowdfunding Space

Payment processors have certainly reaped the benefits of the billions of dollars flowing through the crowdfunding space. WePay is no exception, having recently announced that they are processing as much as $1.5 million in crowdfunding contributions per day. Other quick stats… Secured their first API… Read More

Oculus VR Working On HD, 4K Oculus Rift For Consumers

Oculus VR is a crowdfunding darling, having raised a $16 million Series A round on top of another $2.4 million on Kickstarter. Now the virtual reality gaming headset manufacturer is gearing up for primetime in the form of a new, consumer-spec headset that the team… Read More

Kickstarter For Reborn Will Relaunch: Why That’s A Smart Move

Elemental-Labs Inc. turned to Kickstarter to fund a video game entitled Reborn. The game was aiming for a launch that would have included support for the latest and greatest gaming platforms, the Xbox One and Playstation 4. The project creators have cancelled the campaign early after… Read More

WATCH: Richard Swart’s Macro Take On The World Bank Report

Crack The Crowd has released part one of what is to be a three-part interview with Dr. Richard Swart, who is a partner at Crowdfund Capital Advisors and the head of the crowdfunding research program at UC Berkeley. He was instrumental in the recently released… Read More

It’s Here: The World Bank Report On Crowdfunding

For the better part of a year we’ve been anticipating a report that was to be the product of a joint venture by thought leaders and researchers in the crowdfunding space, distributed and supported by The World Bank. That report, entitled “Crowdfunding’s Potential for the… Read More

SBE Council: Data Suggests Work To Do For Crowdfunding Industry

Only 11% of small business owners are familiar with crowdfunding as a means of capital formation for their businesses. That revelation comes via SBE Council President and CEO Karen Kerrigan, who shared the information via  a survey entitled “Entrepreneurs & the Economy Survey.” The survey… Read More

The Most Successful Kickstarter Category May Surprise You

Credit where credit is due: SFGate did a simple extrapolation on publicly-available Kickstarter data, and that turned up a pretty interesting stat about the success rate of Kickstarter projects. Guess which category of Kickstarter projects can boast the highest success rate. No, not stalwart categories… Read More

MarketersMedia Expands Catalog, Includes Crowdfunding Services

MarketersMedia is a press release distribution platform and service provider, and the company recently announced their intention to reach out to crowdfunding project creators in order to “help connect Kickstarters with more backers: by sending relevant news to relevant media and help Kickstarter campaigns reach… Read More

Crowdfunding News Roundup: October 19, 2013

VentureBeat: WePay’s API pays off, handles 648% more crowdfunding volume than last year The headline says it all… WePay is seeing some pretty impressive traction providing payment services to crowdfunding campaigns, but they’re quickly moving toward robust solutions for platforms as well. A provided API has… Read More

Kickstarter Threatens Legal Action Against UK Crowdfunding Day

UK Crowdfunding Day is coming up, scheduled for November 1st at the Royal Geographical Society in London. Their home page lists “Prominent UK Crowdfunding Organisations and Supporters,” of which various industry participants are listed. At one point Kickstarter was included on that list. Not anymore…. Read More

Mary Jo White: JOBS Act “Facilitates Greater Transparency And Openness”

SEC Chair Mary Jo White addressed a crowd at today’s Managed Funds Association Outlook 2013 Conference in New York City. She spoke at length about the JOBS Act and specifically about Rule 506(c) and general solicitation. It may come as a bit of lip service for… Read More

Storify: Tweets From #BerkeleyCF, Academic Symposium on Crowdfunding

Sherwood “Woodie” Neiss, Richard Swart, Doug Ellenoff and many other crowdfunding industry thought leaders have been busy in Berkeley this week participating in the Fung Institute’s Academic Symposium on Crowdfunding at UC Berkeley. Here we provide a selection of tweets from the event, which encapsulate… Read More

$23 MILLION, And Star Citizen Still Doesn’t Get The Credit It Deserves

We’re going to unabashedly scream it from the mountaintops: Star Citizen is one of – if not the – biggest crowdfunding stories we’ve seen since we’ve launched this site more than a year ago, and it doesn’t get the attention or credit it deserves. The… Read More

Report: SEC To Vote On First Proposed Equity Crowdfunding Rules This Month

Updated 10/18/13 @ 11:00 AM EDT Bloomberg is reporting that the SEC is preparing to vote on a rule that would allow crowdfunding investors to self-certify their own yearly crowdfund investing limits. The JOBS Act specifies yearly limits for investors participating in crowdfunded securities. According… Read More

NASAA’s 2013 Top Investor Threats Include Warning About Crowdfunding Platforms

Under the direction of Ohio Division of Securities Commissioner Andrea Seidt, the NASAA has recently released an updated list of their top investor threats for 2013. Among them: “unregulated third party service providers,” a category that would include crowdfunding portals. Seidt explained the reason for… Read More

SoMoLend, Ohio Securities Division Hearing Postponed Until January

SoMoLend and the Ohio Division of Securities have been on a crash course since a notice of intent to issue a cease and desist was filed back in August of 2013. The hearing, originally scheduled for this week, has been postponed until January according to… Read More

One Spark Festival Raises $70K, Selected For A&E Project Startup

One Spark, a “five-day festival for creators” with a heavy crowdfunding presence, recently closed a $70,556 crowdfunding campaign on RocketHub in order to supplement their already-impressive funding roster for next year’s event. Sponsors for the 2014 event include the City of Jacksonville, the KYN accelerator,… Read More

Bohemian Guitars: “First In The United States” Equity Crowdfunding Campaign On SparkMarket

Offer Ongoing As Minimum is Reached. Georgia-based SparkMarket has announced the success of the first crowdfunding campaign on their equity platform. Bohemian Guitars has hit their goal of crowdfunding $100,000, raising money to grow their budding guitar-making business. SparkMarket is calling it a first in… Read More

Travail Raises $250K, Provides Case Study In Restaurant Crowdfunding

We recently wrote about Travail, a restaurant in Robbinsville, Minnesota that aimed to bring fine dining food to the masses. Well, their round has just closed on Kickstarter to the tune of over $255,000. It is a huge windfall for the restaurant, which will use… Read More

Controversial Story Of Racism Nets Red Lobster Server $10K From YouCaring

A server at Red Lobster in Franklin, Tennessee was allegedly the victim of racism thanks to a nasty slur left in lieu of a real tip. Supporters of Toni Christina Jenkins took to crowdfunding platform YouCaring to donate over $10,000 to the girl. She just… Read More

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