Investment Platforms and Marketplaces

August 25, 2015 @ 8:15 am By JD Alois  |  

International crowdfunding platform FundedByMe has announced the appointment of a new country manager for Finland.  Niclas Ahlström will be taking over from Kristiina Pääkkönen, who initially brought FundedByMe to Finland and served as the company’s Country Manger for 2,5 years.  She will  is now an… Read More

August 24, 2015 @ 9:28 pm By JD Alois  |  

Dianrong, a Chinese peer to peer lending platform, has received a new funding round in the amount of $207 million led by Standard Chartered with  participation from China Fintech Fund and Bohai Leasing.  The Series C funding was declared the largest ever for the direct… Read More

August 24, 2015 @ 1:31 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

In celebration of the annual Burning Man Festival, crowdfunding platform Indiegogo has unveiled the top 5 most creative Burning Man campaigns of this year. Originally based out of San Francisco’s Baker Beach, Burning Man is a week-long annual event that is held in the Black Rock… Read More

August 24, 2015 @ 1:21 pm By JD Alois  |  

Last week, equity crowdfunding platform Seedrs offered shares to their broader audience as part of a funding round to raise £10 million.  According to the platform, £2.5 million in equity was made available for registered investors on its site.  This is not the first time… Read More

August 24, 2015 @ 11:20 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

UK reward-based crowdfunding platform, Crowdfunder UK, announced on Monday has formed a partnership with online printing website, instantprint, to help projects create posters, flyers and marketing materials to promote campaigns – and the ability to offer postcards and posters as rewards. Project owners will be offered an exclusive Crowdfunder deal to… Read More

August 24, 2015 @ 10:21 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Crowdcube is now presenting investors with output from Moody’s Analytics’ private company risk model to help them assess the bond investment opportunities listed on the site. Square Pie and Vanarama are the first to display the new Probability of Default (POD) figure that represents a probability that the business issuing the… Read More

August 24, 2015 @ 8:34 am By JD Alois  |  

SoFi, or Social Finance, is a marketplace lending platform that uses data to provide loans to refinance student debt.  The direct lender has had an enviable degree of success in generating solid risk adjusted returns for its investors. SoFi claimed the title of fastest growing marketplace… Read More

August 22, 2015 @ 12:26 pm By JD Alois  |  

The rewards-based crowdfunding realm has become a robust and diverse sector of the finance industry.  While some in the securities space look down upon platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, this is a misplaced perspective.  Rewards platforms have become an important testing ground, and funding… Read More

August 21, 2015 @ 4:28 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Offering up details about the Israel-based platform, OurCrowd, CEO and co-founder Jon Medved sat down with TechCrunch to discuss everything from expansion to “lead deals.” While chatting about OurCrowd’s growth, Medved shared why the platform team is looking to open a San Francisco Bay area… Read More

August 21, 2015 @ 1:20 pm By JD Alois  |  

Tossed, a chain of “vibrant” healthy eating restaurants, went to Seedrs to raise £750,000 for a 5.5% equity stake in the growing company that gave a pre-money valuation of £12.8 million.  The still open equity crowdfunding campaign is now over £1.2 million as over 630… Read More

August 21, 2015 @ 12:45 pm By JD Alois  |  

  Seedrs opened up an investment round in their own company for investors on their platform to join the equity crowdfunding odyssey.  Seedrs very best investors were given early access to the £2.5 million set aside for users at 9AM today.  Pre-money valuation was set… Read More

August 21, 2015 @ 10:07 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Fairway America (“Fairway”), an authority on small balance real estate (“SBRE”) pooled investment funds, announced today the launch of the Westland Apartment Fund LLC (the “Fund”) out of Portland, Oregon to managed by its client Westland Management Group, LLC (“WMG”). Westland Apartment Investors (“Westland”) was… Read More

August 21, 2015 @ 7:00 am By JD Alois  |  

Seedrs announced last month a Series A funding round in the amount of £10 million led by Woodford Patient Capital Trust along with Augmentum Capital.  As part of that funding round the equity crowdfunding platform has carved out £2.5 million for new shareholders – to… Read More

August 20, 2015 @ 9:04 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

“The last three months have seen around $150 million provided to 144 small businesses within The Funding Network. We’re estimating our total funding volume in 2015 to be around $800 million. Beyond that, I see huge potential for Symbid if we can continue to expand… Read More

August 20, 2015 @ 3:20 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Thursday, Colborne Communications announced that it has acquired Pubslush. This acquisition will go into effect on Monday, August 24th, and crowdfunding platform will continue to take submissions for book funding and pre-order campaigns. Since 1977, Colborne Communications has provided a variety of editing, design… Read More

August 20, 2015 @ 12:48 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

Last week, CEO Laimonas Noreika led the launch of Finbee, the second peer-to-peer lending platform to launch in Lithuania.  Lithuanian and British-owned, Finbee opened its P2P lending service to international investors today. Lithuania is a country that is aggressively courting businesses as a country that is… Read More

August 20, 2015 @ 12:20 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

Cloud Lending Solutions, an end-to-end lending solution built natively on salesforce.com, announced CL Originate, a next-generation online loan origination platform. CL Originate offers cloud-based loan origination and underwriting platform, designed to meet online lenders’ demand for automated and instantaneous loan processing and real-time complex document… Read More

August 20, 2015 @ 11:59 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Marketplace lending platform, Avant, announced on Thursday that two newly secured transactions totaling $339 million in debt financing. These recently minted deals bring Avant’s funding total to $1.1 billion in debt financing, $334 million in equity financing and $400 million raised through the Avant Institutional… Read More

August 20, 2015 @ 11:00 am By JD Alois  |  

LendingRobot is a “robo-advisor” for the marketplace lending sector allowing individuals to automate the process of investing in loans.  The core premise of the service is that individuals may generate high rates of return (today around 7 to 10%) but require sufficient diversification across a… Read More

August 20, 2015 @ 9:41 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Camellia Network, a nonprofit crowdfunding and social support platform to help former foster children, has merged with national nonprofit Youth Villages to enhance and expand the service, Camellia Network founder and best-selling author Vanessa Diffenbaugh announced on Thursday. Diffenbaugh declared: “This is exciting news for all… Read More