Georgia Quinn

LendTech Angels Hosts First Successful LendLab for FinTech Entrepreneurs

Despite a hot and rainy New York City morning, there was a great turn-out at LendTech Angels’ first LendLab event.  Hosted by Kiran Lingam, managing director of LendTech Angels, the event gave aspiring marketplace lending startups an education in the regulatory landscape they are entering…. Read More

Gust Leads the Wind of Change in Connecting Entrepreneurs with Investors

For over a decade Gust, and its predecessor Angelsoft, has quietly been become one of, if not the, largest private investing platforms in the world. Gust is a SaaS platform that helps connect entrepreneurs with investors and other benefactors, in whatever form such investors take,… Read More

Capital Unbound; Piwowar Suggests Regulators Need Restraining & Crowdfunding Should Look to States

A CATO Institute event on the status of capital markets in the US provided a bright spot to an otherwise bleak and rainy day in New York City. Amidst the libertarian rhetoric and literature, two speakers stood out with certain observations and proposed remedies to… Read More

Lending Club IPO: A Watershed Moment for Peer to Peer Lending

  As far as the peer-to-peer or marketplace lending industry is concerned, 2014 ended with a bang and not a whimper as Lending Club, the leading online lender, completed its initial public offering. On December 10, 2014 the Lending Club offering went effective, and ultimately… Read More

OTC Markets: Roadmap to a Venture Exchange

With all of the talk around venture exchanges and the much needed secondary market for private companies, one company has gone a long way in providing such liquidity for smaller, growth and other companies that do not fit the mold of a national securities exchange…. Read More

Ron Suber’s Guide to Improve the Crowdfunding Industry

Recently I participated in the Third Annual Global Crowdfunding Convention and Bootcamp in Las Vegas and Ron Suber, President of Prosper Marketplace, a peer to peer or “marketplace lending” platform, spoke about the nine actions or initiatives that the marketplace lending industry in general and… Read More

American Banker & Lending Club IPO Signal Peer to Peer Coming of Age

Last week’s American Banker P2P Lending and Investing Conference held in New York City (October 6-7) attracted over 375 bankers, investors, platforms and service providers. The sheer fact that a storied institution founded in 1863 and dedicated to the traditional banking industry facilitated such a… Read More

Bondora Sees Huge Opportunity in European Peer to Peer Lending

Although you may not have heard of Bondora, if you follow the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry, you most likely will soon. Bondora is one of the fastest growing peer-to-peer lenders in the world and they are operating in a market with few competitors. Bondora is… Read More

If It Ain’t Broke … SEC Investor Advisory Committee Tackles Non-Problem

On July 10, thanks to the Dodd-Frank Act which mandated its reinstitution, the revived SEC Investor Advisory Committee met in a public forum to discuss certain securities law issues, including a subcommittee’s initial proposals on the definition of “accredited investor” (as defined in Section 501(a)… Read More

Funding Circle: Closing the Loop on the Small Business Funding Gap

In the wake of Dodd-Frank and the financial crisis, peer-to-business lending or “P2B” is stepping up to fill the funding gap for small and startup businesses. What is P2B  you may ask and how does it differ from P2P lending? Well, pretty simply, P2B is… Read More

CircleUp: Filling the Void in Consumer Products Startup Financing

After being freed from the vestibule and entering CircleUp’s airy San Francisco office space with CEO Ryan Caldbeck, I settled in for an open and informative discussion on consumer products, leveraging networks and the future of capital formation. The Vision Ryan and several CircleUp team… Read More

P2P Lending: Creating New Ways to Prosper

The inspiration behind the current iteration of Prosper came after president Ron Suber had personally lent millions of dollars across both the Lending Club and Prosper peer-to-peer or P2P lending platforms. Ron invested in 13,000 loans and noticed that Lending Club’s execution was far superior… Read More

AngelList – The Patron Saint of Equity Crowdfunding

AngelList, the crowdfunding trailblazer, who was “equity crowdfunding” before people even knew what that meant, initially started as simply a matchmaker for angel investors and startups. As a legal and securities nerd I understand the difference between the Magna Carta and the AngeList SEC No… Read More

Lending Club’s Startup Vibe Creates Multi-Billion Giant

Groucho Marx said he refused to be a member of any club that would accept him, but he never heard of Lending Club. When walking through their offices in downtown San Francisco, past the foosball and ping pong tables, mini golf course that mazes around… Read More

Highway1 Provides a Road to Hardware Success

  I know I am in a cool place when I ask Brady Forrest, VP of Highway 1, what one of the two 3-D printers in their workshop is printing, and he casually responds “robot parts.” The best way to describe Highway 1 is like… Read More

UK & US Peer-to-Peer Regulation: Enlightened Touch vs. Square Peg Round Hole

United Kingdom & the United States See Incredible Growth in Peer to Peer Lending Industry. With all of the hype around equity crowdfunding the silent counterpart of peer-to-peer lending has been quietly growing into a significant and disruptive industry. In fact, some industry followers expect… Read More

Seedrs Welcomes New FCA Crowdfunding Rules

Seedrs set the record straight today stating that they “believe the rules the FCA adopted strike an effective balance” and were acceptable. The Seedrs post titled “Welcoming the New FCA Crowdfunding Rules“, states that in addition to being the first UK regulated crowdfunding platform, as… Read More

An Education in P2P & P2B from Assetz Capital plc

London based Assetz Capital Shares Insight into Fast Growing Peer-to-Peer Lending Sector. During my time in London, in addition to touring Westminster Abbey and the National Portrait Gallery, I was fortunate enough to speak with Stuart Law and Luke O’Mahony of Assetz Capital plc who… Read More

In Equity Crowdfunding, The Redcoats are Winning

WyrdLight.com

Fresh from my trip across the pond, I can tell you I have seen the light. Crowdfunding can and is working and we (the United States) are behind the eight ball on this one. When describing the US regulatory regime to crowdfunding professionals in the… Read More

A Tale of Two Crowdfunding Platforms: Seedrs & Crowdcube

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…and within the UK equity crowdfunding market two platforms have emerged as the clear leaders. However, they are quite different in both philosophy and operation and it took little time (the timespan of a… Read More