Investment Platforms and Marketplaces

January 8, 2015 @ 12:30 pm By JD Alois  |  

The largest peer to peer lending platform in the world, Lending Club (NYSE: LC), has formed another partnership.  Adding to the recent announcement they are working with the Women’s Chamber of Commerce (USWCC), Lending Club is now partnering with SCORE – a source of free and confidential… Read More

January 8, 2015 @ 10:54 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Symbid, one of the first investment crowdfunding platforms worldwide, has launched the campaign for Oscar-winning director Mike van Diem’s long-awaited film, The Surprise in association with A-Film Benelux. A romantic comedy focusing on assisted suicide, it is the first in a series of films to be… Read More

January 8, 2015 @ 7:30 am By Erin Hobey  |  

SeedUps, one of Canada’s early equity crowdfunding platforms, was founded by Sandi Gilbert, a well known investment crowdfunding advocate and co-founder of the Equity Crowdfunding Alliance of Canada.  She is also COO of ECN Capital – a partner company of SeedUps. Today Gilbert summarized SeedUps’ activity since launching in mid-2014:… Read More

January 8, 2015 @ 7:26 am By JD Alois  |  

GamCrowd, a UK based gambling crowdfunding & crowdsourcing site has announced a new incubator for gaming startups.  According to a statement from the company, GamCrowd expects participants to benefit from a range of value-added provisions and resources to better prepare young companies and assist with the process… Read More

January 7, 2015 @ 2:21 pm By JD Alois  |  

Real estate crowdfunding platform Fundrise received some exposure in the Gray Lady recently also known as the New York Times. Fundrise co-founder and President Dan Miller participated in a “30 minute interview” about his budding platform. A few interesting notes distilled from the brief include… Read More

January 7, 2015 @ 1:43 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Wednesday (January 7th), Indiegogo announced a strategic partnership with Amplifier, a full-service production company, enabling campaign owners to easily produce, package and ship perks including shirts, hats, mugs, stickers and other items used to reward contributors for their financial support. By simplifying the perk creation… Read More

January 7, 2015 @ 1:05 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Lending Club (NYSE: LC), an online marketplace connecting borrowers and investors, announced on Wednesday (January 7th) the launch of a partnership with the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce (USWCC) to help women business owners access affordable credit. At Women’s Business Loans, women business owners can apply online in… Read More

January 7, 2015 @ 11:49 am By JD Alois  |  

Indiegogo is at International CES in full force this year. Kate Drane, Ben Bateman and CEO & co-founder Slava Rubin (and others) are making the rounds and checking out the many products that have raised funding on their global crowdfunding platform. Yesterday Slava hosted a… Read More

January 7, 2015 @ 11:37 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Sharing details about the new crowdfunding platform Reelcause, along with his insight on the crowdfunding industry, CEO Michael Jacobson discussed the funding method’s ups and downs. Discussing the lack of backend support, including that nearly 77% of organizations and businesses fail to reach funding goals through the majority of… Read More

January 7, 2015 @ 11:32 am By JD Alois  |  

Shanghai-based online financial services firm Dianrong.com stated it has entered into an investment agreement with Northern Light Venture Capital (NLVC), under which the company has received “tens of millions of dollars in investment from NLVC”. Dianrong.com states it has become a fast-growing peer-to-peer (P2P) lending website… Read More

January 7, 2015 @ 9:13 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Five leading female game developers in England named as recipients of Creative England match funding through a  crowdfunding campaign with Crowdfunder known as Queen of Code. Fareed, Lux & the Shadowmaker, Pocket Drakes, Star Catcher and Thinking are all innovative new game dev projects that featured… Read More

January 7, 2015 @ 9:05 am By JD Alois  |  

Mill Residential not only became the first REIT to raise funding on an equity crowdfunding site but it is claiming the first crowdfunding investment to generate accessible returns for investors with its speedy listing on the London Stock Exchange AIM. Crowdfunding on Syndicate Room, Mill… Read More

January 7, 2015 @ 8:04 am By Erin Hobey  |  

2014 proved to be a strong year for fledgling Sliced Investing, an investment platform connecting accredited investors to hedge fund investments: in November the platform closed seed financing of $2 million to develop new funds for investors and accelerate the platform’s growth. Venture capital firms… Read More

January 6, 2015 @ 8:03 pm By JD Alois  |  

Kickstarter, a longtime user of the Amazon Payments platform, announced today they have decided to stop using the service shifting their business to competitor Stripe.  Amazon, described as an “excellent partner” has been the platform that Kickstarter has used to process “$1 billion in pledges”…. Read More

January 6, 2015 @ 1:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

Global crowdfunding platform Indiegogo has announced a new service called InDemand.  The service was originally called Forever Funding. In a growing recognition of the overlap between rewards based campaigns and “pretail” or “presales” type projects,  Indiegogo is further facilitating the transition from crowdfunding to e-commerce… Read More

January 6, 2015 @ 12:25 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

In its 2014 summary, WiSEED shared its growth:  37,700 members, 51 startups funded and  € 14 million in funds raised (a 100% increase from 2013).  Integral to its own growth and French crowdfunding became WiSEED’s involvement with financial regulations in October 2014: “After months of discussions with… Read More

January 6, 2015 @ 11:48 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Paymentandbanking.com named Hamburg-based Kreditech  as the FinTech Startup of 2014. The jury explains its choice noting  Kreditech “obvious disruption and, unfortunately, one of the few German FinTech startups that has substantial foreign investment.” Kreditech applies big data to score the creditworthiness of customers. In addition, Founder Institute initiated its… Read More

January 6, 2015 @ 11:02 am By Erin Hobey  |  

OurCrowd, the leading global equity crowdfunding platform for accredited investors, reported significant growth and expansion during 2014. Yesterday the company posted achievements on its blog, today more highlights were shared in a yearend summary.  In under two years, OurCrowd has established itself as a major international… Read More

January 6, 2015 @ 9:53 am By JD Alois  |  

In an “important message” customers, BitStamp announced it has temporarily suspended all services as it investigates a security breach where “operational wallets” were compromised.  According to the popular Bitcoin exchange, hackers stole “less than 19,000 BTC” or approximately $5 million – a sizable amount but… Read More

January 6, 2015 @ 9:26 am By Erin Hobey  |  

The European Alternative Finance Benchmarking Survey deadline is today, 6 January 2015. Since late November, The University of Cambridge teamed up with EY, the global professional services organization, and launched the European Alternative Finance Benchmarking Survey with the support of major European industry associations. As readers may know, this is the largest study to date on… Read More