Investment Platforms and Marketplaces

May 31, 2017 @ 10:21 am By JD Alois  |  

Seedrs has announced the first securities will trade on its secondary trading platform for shares in crowdfunded businesses next Tuesday, June 6, 2017. Previously announced, trading is scheduled to take place on the first Tuesday of each month (Trading Tuesdays). This will help to concentrate… Read More

May 31, 2017 @ 6:53 am By JD Alois  |  

LendingClub (NYSE:LC) has filed a new form with the SEC (DEF 14A) in advance of the annual shareholders meeting which is scheduled to take place on June 6, 2017. The addition to the Annual Meeting Proxy Statement, a standard filing, includes a presentation on the… Read More

May 30, 2017 @ 10:39 pm By JD Alois  |  

UK based Fineqia has announced its intent to launch the Beta version of its new investor platform by Canada Day (July 1, 2017). Fineqia is based in the UK. Finequia has partnered with JOI Media’s Katipult crowdfunding platform to launch in Canada. JOI is based… Read More

May 30, 2017 @ 5:18 pm By JD Alois  |  

Orchard X, the secondary trading platform being created by Orchard platform, received coverage from NYTimes.com yesterday shedding some light on the delayed launch. The electronic trading platform for online lending assets was announced in April 2016 but since that date little has been said about a… Read More

May 30, 2017 @ 8:15 am By Erin Hobey  |  

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream… and gelato. It’s that wonderful time of year when the weather warms and the gelaterias and ice cream shops reopen. Enter Ice Wave.  Crowdcube Spain investors quickly responded to Ice Wave‘s equity crowdfunding campaign, helping… Read More

May 30, 2017 @ 8:11 am By JD Alois  |  

Seedrs, the UKs “most active equity investor into private companies,” has announced a new partnership with NatWest to provide access to capital for British SMEs labeled “Capital Connections”.  Seedrs joins an existing group of alternative finance platforms in the initiative that includes Funding Circle, Assetz… Read More

May 30, 2017 @ 7:39 am By JD Alois  |  

Banco BNI Europa, a Lisbon based digital only banking group, has announced a strategic agreement with Raize, Portugals largest peer to peer lender. Banco BNI Europa will invest €10 million to boost SME lending via Raize over the next two years. The announcement by the… Read More

May 29, 2017 @ 6:27 am By Erin Hobey  |  

At this writing, donation-based crowdfunding campaigns LaunchGood and GoFundMe have raised more than a combined $700,000 from over 15,000 people for the three men who stood up for two Muslim women being harassed by Jeremy Joseph Christian. Christian killed Ricky John Best, 53, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, 23…. Read More

May 28, 2017 @ 3:15 pm By JD Alois  |  

CommonBond, an online lending platform and community that is targeting the student loan space, has launched a new competition that is giving away $10,000. In partnership with Pencils of Promise, CommonBond has launched the Social Impact Award. According to their site, CommonBond and Pencils of… Read More

May 26, 2017 @ 7:45 am By JD Alois  |  

The UK housing market has struggled for years as high demand has challenged supply. The markets have reacted naturally by driving housing costs up. Home buyers and renters have struggled to keep up. London has become one of the most expensive property markets in the… Read More

May 26, 2017 @ 5:24 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Shortly after the terrorist attack, The Manchester Evening News partnered with the British Red Cross to launch a donations campaign on JustGiving to raise £2 million to support the families of the victims killed and wounded in the tragic Manchester Arena attack. The campaign has… Read More

May 26, 2017 @ 4:30 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Hungry for an investment or just plain hungry?  Vita Mojo provides a solution to both! Vita Mojo, a quickly-growing UK restaurant chain and software company that is backed by the €6B global caterer Elior, is on a mission “to make food personal.” With industry leaders already on… Read More

May 25, 2017 @ 7:32 pm By JD Alois  |  

Silver Bullion reports it has now facilitated S$30 million in peer to peer loans secured by precious metals like gold and silver. The Singapore-based platform expects to pay out S$1 million in interest as the loans mature. Lenders are receiving an average return of 3.83%… Read More

May 25, 2017 @ 3:50 pm By JD Alois  |  

Online lender Earnest has closed $175 million in refinanced student loans. The offering received a AA rating on the senior notes by DBRS which is one notch below the highest attainable rating of AAA. Earnest said the transaction was oversubscribed by 3X and traded at… Read More

May 25, 2017 @ 7:48 am By JD Alois  |  

Zopa has announced that it will launch its Innovative Finance ISAs or IFSA in June pending HMRC approval. Zopa believes demand for the new ISA will be high and said it will give priority access to existing customers. In advance of the IFISA, Zopa is… Read More

May 25, 2017 @ 7:31 am By Erin Hobey  |  

With 15 days remaining on its Crowdcube equity crowdfunding campaign, the UK-based sports nutrition brand TRIBE, has raised nearly £1.4M with the confidence of over 1558 investors for 20.28% equity offered.  Funding from the campaign will be used to help aid product development (more info due in late 2017), improve… Read More

May 24, 2017 @ 6:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

LendingClub (NYSE:LC), the largest marketplace lender in the US, is celebrating its tenth anniversary. It is pretty hard to believe that LendingClub is now ten years old. Launched by founder and former CEO Renaud Laplanche back in 2007, like most companies, LendingClub started quite small…. Read More

May 24, 2017 @ 5:42 pm By JD Alois  |  

FundedByMe, says they have broken their internal record for the most number of investments on the platform. The Sweden-based crowdfunding platform said it had launched 12 new campaigns in the past 10 days driving investor interest. FundedByMe did not disclose details on the activity but… Read More

May 24, 2017 @ 12:20 pm By Therese Torris  |  

    After multiple formal and informal discussions with representatives of the crowdfunding sector, consumer associations and the German financial establishment, the Financial Committee of the German Parliament has drawn its conclusions from the review of one year of operation under the German crowdfunding regulation,… Read More

May 24, 2017 @ 10:00 am By Erin Hobey  |  

“Our aim is to enable women behind and in front of the camera in the industry during a time when gender inequality still exists.” UK online investment platform SyndicateRoom announced that the independent UK film Kat and the Band has been fully funded, having reached its £400,000 target…. Read More