Investment Platforms and Marketplaces

February 10, 2016 @ 10:54 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Wednesday, real estate crowdfunding marketplace, Patch of Land, announced an East Coast Credit fund has signed an agreement to purchase loans in a “forward flow arrangement”. This commitment will put $250 million towards the platform’s investments. According to the website, the involvment of the… Read More

February 10, 2016 @ 10:09 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

With the 58th annual Grammy Awards set to be held at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California this upcoming Monday, Kickstarter announced the nominees that were funded through its crowdfunding platform. The Kickstarter team shared: “On Kickstarter, we see Music projects for everything from just-starting-out demos… Read More

February 10, 2016 @ 9:01 am By JD Alois  |  

Recently launched equity crowdfunding platform Growthdeck, has merged operations with Squareknot based in Glasgow, Scotland in perhaps the first merger of two online equity marketplaces. Growthdeck, announced its debut this January to offer “investors more investment experience, transparency and a much higher level of customer… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 2:40 pm By JD Alois  |  

Lemonade, a peer to peer insurance platform that seeks to address the profound shortcomings of the multi-trillion dollar insurance industry now has some prominent names backing the young company.  Announced today, Lemonade has now received the support of “top tier” global reinsurance partners including Berkshire… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 2:23 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Bizfi, a premier FinTech company with a platform that combines aggregation, funding and a participation marketplace for small businesses, announced it originated over $142 million in business financing in the fourth quarter of 2015 – a record for any one-quarter since the founding of the company… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 2:08 pm By Therese Torris  |  

At a time when many a crowdlending platform focuses on attracting institutional investors, it is very refreshing to see a startup go back to the roots of crowdfunding by addressing the needs of the crowd, the 99%, the retail investors. investUP is a crowdfunding portal… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 11:23 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Tuesday, crowdfunding platform Seedrs congratulated British tennis player, Andy Murray, on the birth of his and wife Kim Sears’ daughter. The Seedrs team took to the portal’s Twitter account and wished Murray and Sears the best. Congratulations @andy_murray and #KimSears on the birth of… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 11:03 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

While in the midst of celebrating Crowdcube’s fifth birthday, co-founder and CEO of the crowdfunding platform, Darren Westlake, took some time to address issues and rumors that have surfaced over the years. In recent news, sources claimed that the crowdfunding platform misled investors by “drip-feeding” money… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 10:38 am By JD Alois  |  

Prosper Marketplace has published a survey on the “Financial Wellness” of the nation.  According to Prosper, their metrics indicate that nearly 60% of the population does not have “financial freedom” and manystruggle  to accomplish their financial goals. The survey included 1,000 Americans, aged 18 or older… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 10:01 am By Erin Hobey  |  

National Funding, a private lenders of small business loans, today announced that industry veteran Geoff Howard has joined its executive team as Executive Vice President of Technology. Howard joins National Funding from Intuit during the company’s fastest-growth period, which has experienced a 172% revenue growth surge… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 9:45 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Tuesday, UK-based Crowdcube celebrated its fifth birthday by unveiling a timeline of significant events and equity crowdfunding milestones. Sharing his thoughts about the portal’s successes so far, co-founder of Crowdcube, Darren Westlake, stated: “The past five years have been amazing. To think that we’ve created… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 9:11 am By JD Alois  |  

SyndicateRoom and startup accelerator Wayra have joined to collaborate to aid tech startups in their funding “journey”. SyndicateRoom, a leading UK equity crowdfunding platform, is said to work closely with current and future companies participating in the Wayra program.  For qualified startups, SyndicateRoom will help… Read More

February 9, 2016 @ 4:11 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Bond Street, an online lending platform for small businesses, and Booker, an all-­in-­one local service commerce platform, today announced a partnership to provide fairly­priced lending capital to help facilitate the growth of companies on the Booker platform. “Bond Street shares Booker’s mission to minimize the… Read More

February 8, 2016 @ 5:41 pm By JD Alois  |  

Equitise has a new shareholder.  Investec Australia, a publicly traded company, announced today that it had purchased a 20% stake in the equity crowdfunding platform making it the single largest shareholder behind the Equitise co-founders.  Investec was joined in the funding round by H2 Ventures and… Read More

February 8, 2016 @ 4:07 pm By JD Alois  |  

Disruptive investment crowdfunding platform AngelList has published an end of the year recap.  The digital funding and job board community states that it raised $163 million during 2015. This number was generated for 441 startups funded by 3,379 investors. There are approximately 770,000 companies with… Read More

February 8, 2016 @ 4:02 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Last month, New Zealand-based crowdfunding platform PledgeMe announced it was looking for a new board member following the departure of Anake Goodall. The equity portal’s Anna Guenther shared: “With Anake leaving our board of directors, we’re on the lookout for someone to jump on the… Read More

February 8, 2016 @ 3:15 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Monday, Kickstarter celebrated the 100,000th project to be successfully funded on its crowdfunding platform by releasing 100 numbers behind those first 100,000 initiatives. The portal shared on its blog: “In the 6 years, 9 months, and 10 days since Kickstarter launched, much has changed and… Read More

February 8, 2016 @ 12:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

As part of a “credit performance update”, Lending Club has published an 8-K with the SEC regarding a blog post that was published on February 7th that was “subsequently misinterpreted”. Lending Club has now attempted to better explain its message. According to the 8-K from… Read More

February 7, 2016 @ 7:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

Don’t Bank. SoFi. The marketplace lender doesn’t want to change the banking industry. It wants to eliminate it completely. Having raised a mere billion dollars last year, SoFi has decided to spend a few dimes on promoting its message around the country. And what better… Read More

February 7, 2016 @ 1:07 pm By JD Alois  |  

Leading marketplace lending platform Prosper acquired an Israeli startup towards the end of 2015 called BillGuard.  BillGuard’s service allows consumers to track their spending across many accounts, budget effectively, and protect their money from wrongful charges while monitoring a user’s credit score. It may also… Read More