April 8, 2015 @ 1:13 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Equity crowdfunding platform Arthena is mixing crowdfunding and fine art to create a modern masterpiece. Founded by 27-year-old Harvard alumna Madelaine D’Angelo, Arthena offers casual investors to fund undervalued, modern artists who are creating art pieces that could quickly appreciate in value, as a recent story in Upstart Business Journal notes…. Read More

April 7, 2015 @ 2:04 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

SellShed, a New Zealand-based social marketplace app, just hit its $250,000 crowdfunding target in less than four weeks, according to the company’s press release. Currently, 43 investors have pledged $377,600, with two days remaining in the campaign and a maximum possible investment of $1,000,000. Investment opportunities went… Read More

April 5, 2015 @ 8:01 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

One Spark, one of the world’s largest crowdfunding festivals, is about to fill Jacksonville, Fl., with 555 projects in art, education, health and science, music, social good and technology. From April 7 to April 12, the festival gives attendees a chance to contribute to Creator Projects, and vote for… Read More

April 3, 2015 @ 8:01 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Australia’s real estate crowdfunding scene has been a hot topic in recent news, including the launch of real estate crowdfunding platform, CrowdfundUp, offering both debt and equity investment opportunities to investors of all types. But the Outback is also home to another online real estate… Read More

April 3, 2015 @ 2:50 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Funding Circle, which claims to be the “world’s leading online marketplace lender exclusively focused on small business,” is in advanced talks with Temasek Holdings, a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund, to sell a stake in itself, according to Sky News. The move is part of a fundraising effort–to… Read More

April 3, 2015 @ 2:08 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

MoneyPlace, Australia’s newest P2P lending market, has confirmed that it plans to begin trading in the June quarter, joining current popular platforms SocietyOne, RateSetter and ThinCats, according to BankingDay. The Melbourne-based company will focus on the personal loan market, with a minimum loan of $5,000 on three-year… Read More

April 2, 2015 @ 2:38 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Burgundy winery Domaine Chanzy, which was set to launch what Seedrs CEO Jeff Lynn called “the first crowdfunding campaign for a company’s IPO,” has postponed its campaign on the leading investment crowdfunding portal, according to a recent story on Harpers.co.uk. As Crowdfund Insider reported in February, the… Read More

April 1, 2015 @ 3:29 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Bigger than a football field, the largest aircraft in the world is a low-carbon, low-noise, low-pollution wonder that soars high. Hybrid Air Vehicles, its manufacturer, is hoping that Airlander 10’s crowdfunding campaign will also reach great heights. On investment crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, London-based Hybrid Air Vehicles on Tuesday launched a… Read More

March 31, 2015 @ 3:11 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Colorado’s Senate today approved a bill that would make the state at least the 15th to create more straightforward regulations for residents who want to invest in Colorado companies through online intermediaries, noted the Associated Press. House Bill 1246, the Colorado Crowdfunding Act, would expand the pool of… Read More

March 27, 2015 @ 3:06 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

This week, crowdfunding platform Kickstarter introduced a new feature for successfully funded campaigns: Spotlight. In one place, the new page allows successfully funded creators to tell the complete story of how their products came to life. For example, take the Gramovox Bluetooth Gramophone campaign, for which 927 backers… Read More

March 26, 2015 @ 1:49 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

If your small firm is rejected for a bank loan in Britain next year, consider hearing out the bank’s entire response: There are alternatives. A British government scheme that requires banks to refer small firms rejected for loans to alternative finance providers is expected to be underway by… Read More

March 24, 2015 @ 2:56 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

You can still vote for new flavors of beer–cinnamon, vanilla cranberry and cocoa, or sour blood orange–with the confidence that it’s coming in fairly small, unique batches. MobCraft Beer, the first crowdfunding campaign to try Wisconsin’s new crowdfunding law, recently fell short of its 3.5 month… Read More

March 20, 2015 @ 1:53 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

The faster you go, the more you should demand from your helmet. (This may be why my days of mile-per-hour roller blading only required a good-fitting helmet from Costco.) For Ryan Shearman, founder and CEO of FUSAR Technologies and a lifelong motorcyclist, this principle was driven home as… Read More

March 19, 2015 @ 9:22 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Shortly into 2015, Kelly Rodriques, president and CEO of PENSCO Trust Company, a leading alternative asset custodian, shared his top five predictions for the year underway. Crowdfund Insider caught up with him for a more detailed Q-and-A about his predictions—from the $1 million investment cap… Read More

March 19, 2015 @ 2:08 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Many in the crowdfunding world are abuzz with news about Australian startups–from Flow Hive, Indiegogo’s most funded crowdfunding project, to CrowdfundUp, Australia’s first real estate crowdfunding platform. And in today’s news, angel investor group Sydney Angels is partnering with equity-based crowdfunding platform VentureCrowd to offer more Australian startups the… Read More

March 18, 2015 @ 2:38 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

With April’s at-retirement reforms at hand, RateSetter, the UK’s largest P2P platform, is planning to launch into the retirement space with two self-invested pension providers (SIPPs), according to a recent story in the Financial Times. The news comes on the wave of January’s update that RateSetter was nearing a… Read More

March 17, 2015 @ 2:02 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

After your book becomes a New York Times bestseller, and you travel the world helping founders developing new apps, entrepreneurs at hypergrowth pre-IPO tech startups and managers at the largest, slowest, most heavily-regulated and bureaucratic organizations in the world, what’s next? For Eric Ries, author of “The Lean… Read More

March 16, 2015 @ 11:48 pm By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Wrapping up £1.8 million-plus in funding for “Salty,” a new film by director Simon West, of ‘The Expendables 2″ (2012) and “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (2001), Hollywood takes a trip to the UK. The equity crowdfunding campaign for “Salty” marks the first time that retail investors worldwide will be able to… Read More

March 16, 2015 @ 2:14 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

As spring strikes again and bird nests fill the trees, a leading UK online estate agent is helping homeowners sell their brick-and-mortar nests on the ground. Urban.co.uk, based in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, is now equity crowdfunding on CrowdCube, a leading investment crowdfunding platform, with minimum share… Read More

March 13, 2015 @ 2:18 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

It’s a site reminiscent of CraigsList, but gone mobile (and without the Missed Connections): SellShed, a New Zealand startup, is a free mobile app that matches buyers and sellers in their local communities for online trading. The company is now aiming to raise $500,000 through equity crowdfunding,… Read More