Featured Headlines

December 14, 2015 @ 9:30 am By Andrew Stephenson  |  

On May 16, 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules implementing Title III of the JOBS Act will come into effect, allowing companies to raise funds under Section 4(a)(6) of the Securities Act. The SEC made some important improvements over the proposed rules that will… Read More

December 13, 2015 @ 5:56 pm By Therese Torris  |  

Is there more to the current blockchain hype than there was to the Bitcoin hype of the past? 7 myths debunked. 7 reasons to be skeptical. Two years ago, Bitcoin was at the peak of its hype cycle. The digital currency’s value skyrocketed. Increasing tenfold in… Read More

December 12, 2015 @ 9:38 am By JD Alois  |  

  The draft regulations surrounding the forthcoming Innovative Finance Individual Savings Account was published earlier this week by the UK government. The much-anticipated vehicle is expected to add fuel to the peer to peer lending industry as it will open up the asset class to… Read More

December 10, 2015 @ 5:22 pm By Midori Yoshimura  |  

For David Behin, co-founder and CEO of CityFunders, proving real estate investment opportunities for accredited investors, his goal was to help bring real estate investing to the masses. Fast forward to now, and the pool of real estate investors has noticeably increased, with the passage of the JOBS Act, Title III. The… Read More

December 10, 2015 @ 11:52 am By JD Alois  |  

In the midst of the Fundrise eREIT offer, a $50 million raise that allows non-accredited investors access to participate in crowdfunded offers on the Fundrise platform, the Real Deal criticized the offer as “cherry picking” its numbers. This comes as Fundrise just closed its second funding… Read More

December 10, 2015 @ 8:21 am By JD Alois  |  

In a sign of a more vigilant approach by Chinese authorities regarding questionable peer to peer lending platforms, Ezubo (Ezubao) saw 1.1 billion yuan frozen by the government  and the Chairman, Din Ning along with other top executives were said to be in police custody according… Read More

December 9, 2015 @ 7:30 am By Spencer Li  |  

On November 16, 2015, Yirendai, an “online” Chinese marketplace lending platform, filed its Form F-1  (Form F-1 /A) with the SEC for an IPO listing on the NYSE. Yirendai is a subsidiary of CreditEase, a sizeable financial services firm in China that provides lending and wealth… Read More

December 8, 2015 @ 7:00 am By Samuel Guzik  |  

  December 2, 2015, seemed no different than any other day in Washington, D.C. With a light rain falling, it was a rather dismal day for sightseeing in our Nation’s Capitol – yet the sun seemed to be shining for our small and emerging businesses… Read More

December 8, 2015 @ 12:15 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Reversing a six-year downward trend, activity in established small businesses increased last year, according to a press release for the 2015 Kauffman Index: Main Street Entrepreneurship, a new report that tracks small business activity and ownership in the United States. Though the number of established small… Read More

December 7, 2015 @ 7:22 am By JD Alois  |  

Fellow Finance, a peer to peer lender based in Helsinki, has formed a strategic partnership with Crowdcredit, based in Toyko, in an arrangement where Crowdcredit which create investment funds to invest in loans from Finnish borrowers.  The agreement is designed to drive value for both… Read More

December 6, 2015 @ 10:36 pm By Anthony Zeoli  |  

  Real estate crowdfunding is arguably one of, if not the, most popular and fastest growing segments of the crowdfunding industry. Particularly those portals focused on P2P (or “marketplace”) lending of real estate projects. That is probably why it seems like I hear about a… Read More

December 6, 2015 @ 11:48 am By JD Alois  |  

The SEC filed charges against two Bitcoin mining operations last week accusing the founder of launching a Ponzi scheme to defraud investors lured in by get rich quick claims. Homero Joshua Garza operated two Bitcoin companies, GAW Miners and ZenMiner.  The Connecticut-based scam paid early… Read More

December 4, 2015 @ 3:26 am By Spencer Li  |  

Following in the footsteps of Chinese internet giants such as Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com, leading Chinese P2P platforms have begun evolving into one-stop wealth management platforms. Alibaba’s Ant Financial, Tencent’s WeBank, and JD.com’s JD Finance (for some background on these platforms, please refer to a… Read More

December 3, 2015 @ 2:58 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Just one day after announcing plans to open its next investment opportunity, Fundrise debuted what’s dubbed as the world’s first eREIT. The crowdfunding platform shared: “Commercial real estate has historically been one of the best performing investment assets. Investors whose portfolios have up to 20% allocated to… Read More

December 3, 2015 @ 9:00 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

  “I knew it could be amazing.” Jane ní Dhulchaointigh, CEO of Sugru, one of the world’s first moldable glue brands, saw the potential in the first, we’ll say, “aromatic” blend of silicone caulk and waste wood dust she created to improve her belongings so that they worked better… Read More

December 3, 2015 @ 1:26 am By JD Alois  |  

Legislation is a Positive Step But Includes Unnecessary Costs. According to real estate crowdfunding platform CrowdfundUp, Australia has “missed an opportunity” as released crowdfunding law falls short of ambitions.  Following many months of discussion, the Australian government published its “Crowd-sourced Funding” bill allowing eligible companies… Read More

December 2, 2015 @ 8:00 am By JD Alois  |  

During the buildup to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s announcement regarding the final rules on Title III retail crowdfunding, the Commission filed a fraud case in the US District Court of Nevada.  The SEC accused Ascenergy, a company ostensibly in the oil and gas industry,… Read More

December 1, 2015 @ 8:00 am By Erin Hobey  |  

“I do not recycle or repackage the ideas of others.  I try to focus instead on broader JOBS Act issues and events which have thus far gone unnoticed – or barely noticed – and which require further thought, analysis and hopefully, action, by louder and… Read More

November 30, 2015 @ 6:48 am By JD Alois  |  

Anthony Jenkins, is a former CEO of Barclay’s Group having managed the global firm from 2012 to 2015. He was sacked by John “Mack the Knife” McFarlane in the summer of 2015. Jenkins had set out to tackle a “culture of self-enrichment” and to refocus… Read More

November 28, 2015 @ 9:27 am By Darcy Brooks  |  

Since equity crowdfunding is a topic that’s close to our hearts, and since it absorbs such a large chunk of my day and my thoughts, I’m always rather taken aback by some of the common misconceptions that come up anytime the discussion touches on equity… Read More