Featured Headlines

September 15, 2015 @ 11:00 pm By Barry James  |  

Crowdfunding and ‘Alt-Finance’ are of course one of the cornerstones of FinTech as key parts of the ‘Finance’ leg. Although FinTech is broader-based encompassing cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin and related technologies (especially Blockchain) as well as new and faster ways of transacting and transferring ‘legacy’… Read More

September 15, 2015 @ 12:53 pm By JD Alois  |  

Regulations usually possess good intent, but all too frequently are near-sighted and fall far short of assisting targeted beneficiaries.  This may be another case of myopic regulators not taking a moment to think beyond what superficially may appear to be a plus, but ends up… Read More

September 15, 2015 @ 4:00 am By Anthony Zeoli  |  

Steve Jobs is quoted as saying that “innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” While I personally agree with this statement, and it may certainly be the case in the mobile device and other industries, when it comes to the offering and sale of… Read More

September 14, 2015 @ 2:00 am By Candace Klein  |  

  SBA….MCA….APR….LOC…. Do these acronyms mean anything to you?  The small business financing landscape is full of them and you’ll need to understand them to make the best possible financing decisions for your business.  And to avoid wasting time or money. If you are like… Read More

September 11, 2015 @ 11:06 am By Amy Wan  |  

  Since the SEC announced the intent to implement the new Regulation A+ rules in March, there’s been a lot of hype around the potential for Regulation A+. This newly implemented offering mechanism has been heralded for its ability to bring increased opportunities to the… Read More

September 10, 2015 @ 9:09 am By Ben Miller  |  

The investment crowdfunding space is on fire – growing by more than 1000% a year. Within real estate alone, total investment is projected to hit $2.5 billion by the end of December. Meanwhile, FinTech has become glorified as a revolution in finance ready to take… Read More

September 9, 2015 @ 9:00 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

As the director of Trillion Fund, a renewable energy and social investment crowdfunding platform, Julia Groves has a key piece of advice for women new to working in crowdfunding: Learn to show off. “Grit your teeth and do it, otherwise someone less amazing than you might get the… Read More

September 9, 2015 @ 12:47 am By JD Alois  |  

Most people are not even aware there is a dividing line between who is allowed to invest in pre-IPO companies and who may not. A travesty of rule making, today investors are measured by the size of their bank account – and not the caliber… Read More

September 8, 2015 @ 8:00 am By Charles Clinton  |  

  If you’ve even casually followed the startup world over the last five years there’s a word that you’ve surely heard – disintermediation. It’s a fancy new word for a plain old business concept: cutting out the middleman. Disintermediation, to its devotees, is the role… Read More

September 7, 2015 @ 10:12 am By Ronald Kleverlaan  |  

The e-Residency project is an initiative of the Estonian government to offer every world citizen the possibility to become an e-Resident of Estonia. As a side effect they could solve a number of problems for current Crowdfunding platforms with this government backed e-identity program and boost the industry…. Read More

September 4, 2015 @ 4:00 pm By Charles Kaufman and Jor Law  |  

        If your company is not public and plans to raise capital, you might have considered Regulation A Plus – and you are aware that it comes with a big warning sticker: the company needs to prepare an offering circular and go… Read More

September 3, 2015 @ 4:00 pm By Midori Yoshimura  |  

  With the publication of the Small Business Borrowers’ Bill of Rights, one of the first consensuses on responsible small business lending practices, earlier this month, marketplace lending platforms including Funding Circle, Lending Club and Fundera showed their support for greater transparency for borrowers and accountability for platforms and… Read More

September 2, 2015 @ 5:00 pm By Bret Conkin and Alixe Cormick  |  

Causes and Lessons to be learned from more Developed Markets In this three-part series, we examine whether “conservative” Canadian business culture is having a negative effect on equity crowdfunding taking hold in Canada.  In Part I of this series we took a snapshot of equity… Read More

September 2, 2015 @ 9:06 am By JD Alois  |  

Paul Niederer, CEO of ASSOB  – a trailblazing investment crowdfunding platform in Australia, makes a very valid point. Regulators are too rooted in the past and they are at risk of botching the future as the finance industry inevitably moves online. Australia is in the… Read More

September 1, 2015 @ 7:00 pm By Midori Yoshimura  |  

  One of the UK’s leading figures in FinTech, Louise Beaumont is the head of public affairs and marketing at GLI Finance, a prominent investor in the SME alternative finance sector. Her straightforward self-summary–“I grow companies–from initial spark, to operationalisation, results delivered, and value created”–is… Read More

September 1, 2015 @ 7:53 am By JD Alois  |  

BrewDog and its “Equity for Punks” crowdfunding offer is now listed on Crowdcube in a “first” combined debt and equity capital raise.  The offer is marketed as the “Worlds Biggest [funding] Round”. According to Crowdcube, investors may purchase 2 shares of BrewDog stock for £95… Read More

August 31, 2015 @ 1:30 pm By JD Alois  |  

As aptly stated in one publication, Massachusetts and Montana are giving Regulation A+  – an F.  While the failing grade is perplexing to most casual observers, the battle over this new investment crowdfunding exemption and the petitioning states is nowhere near completion. In a filing… Read More

August 31, 2015 @ 2:00 am By Alessandro M. Lerro  |  

Cyclically, innovation gets the top of the corporate agenda as a growth enabler that can play a major role in replacing existing products or services and in creating new markets, so anticipating future needs and eventually disrupting the current business models. But the “innovator’s dilemma”… Read More

August 28, 2015 @ 10:20 am By Jason Fritton  |  

The traditional world of real estate needs to prepare for the next wave of investors – Millennials. Currently ranging in age from 18 to 34, and numbering roughly 77 million, Millennials make up about one-fourth of the U.S. population – and are far less interested… Read More

August 27, 2015 @ 8:48 am By James Tuckett  |  

Hold the front page – the Chinese economy is slowing down. Who didn’t see that one coming? In an age of intertwined economies, extreme volatility in China is being exported globally. Calamity across the Chinese commodity markets this week is having largely foreseen global consequences…. Read More