General News

August 9, 2016 @ 11:44 am By Erin Hobey  |  

“Traditional whiskey can take 6 to 12 years to passively age in a barrel yet emerging markets are creating shortages that established distilleries simply can’t manage. With disruptive technology, our process uses pressure variations and oxygenation that reduces maturation time to less than 24 hours,” stated… Read More

August 9, 2016 @ 11:43 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Crowdfunding platform, Tilt, announced on Tuesday the launch of its new peer-to-peer lending feature, Request and Money. This new feature will reportedly allow for free, secure and automatic payments on iOS and Android.  The funding portal revealed those who use Request and Send may exchange money with… Read More

August 9, 2016 @ 11:09 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Tuesday, Biz2Credit unveiled the findings of its recent small business lending index, which revealed that loan approval rates at big banks (over $10 billion in assets), alternative lenders, and credit union dipped in July 2016. CEO of Biz2Credit and who oversaw the research, Rohit… Read More

August 9, 2016 @ 10:49 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Small Change continues to make a difference in the Pittsburgh market.  Its currently live campaign is offering is the Buvinger Building.  Located at 4407 Butler Street, the historic three-story building located in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the developer is seeking equity investments of $238,500, which… Read More

August 9, 2016 @ 10:22 am By Erin Hobey  |  

It’s official.  AngelList, the Silicon Valley-based online platform which allows startups to raise capital from accredited investors, has appointed Utsav Somani, who previously worked with LetsVenture, as an Advisor to spearhead its operations in India. In the blog post “Bringing AngelList to India”, Somani disclosed his new role… Read More

August 9, 2016 @ 9:46 am By Erin Hobey  |  

CapitalRise, the London-based property investing platform which was founded by property veterans Alex Michelin and Andrew Dunn of Finchatton and FinTech expert Uma Rajah, launched in July 2016, announces its second deal on prestigious Grosvenor Square, regarded as London’s most famous square. The project aims to… Read More

August 8, 2016 @ 2:37 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Last week, Mexican peer-to-peer lending platform, Kubo.Financiero announced it had secured $7.5 million during its Series A funding round, which was led by Bamboo Finance with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, Monex Grupo Financiero, KuE Capital, Tanant Capital, Javier Molinar, Alta Ventures Mexico Fund I, Capital Invent,… Read More

August 8, 2016 @ 12:38 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Monday, marketplace lending platform, LendingUSA, announced it has appointed Brian Walby as its new vice president of sales. Walby previously worked as owner and managing director of RVC Consulting and has held executive and senior level positions at Experian Interactive Media and LendingTree. Sharing details… Read More

August 8, 2016 @ 11:46 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Last week, property crowdfunding platform, Transcendent Real Estate (TRE), officially opened its doors for investors. The Manchester-based company currently offers direct equity investments in commercial real estate assets through the UK. Its first property is 43-45 Lever Street. The 13,182sq property is located at the… Read More

August 8, 2016 @ 10:07 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Sunday, Kickstarter announced its new Invent Newsletter, which is said to offer backers a way to stay up-to-date on invention projects, behind-the-scene stories and bold ideas from the design and tech pages. The funding portal stated the newsletter is a twice-a-month introduction of the… Read More

August 6, 2016 @ 6:08 pm By JD Alois  |  

Canaan Partners is a Silicon Valley VC firm that has over $4.0 billion under management with a good portion of their investments going into seed / early stage companies. They have also set up offices in Israel to be closer to the StartUp Nation phenomena… Read More

August 6, 2016 @ 2:45 pm By JD Alois  |  

Ethan Mollick, a professor and researcher at Wharton, recently published new research on Kickstarter. Mollick focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation and is one of a few academians focusing their attention on alternative finance. His most recent research, entitled “Containing Multitudes: The Many Impacts of Kickstarter… Read More

August 5, 2016 @ 3:45 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

With the 2016 Summer Olympic Games set to kick off this evening in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, crowdfunding platform GoFundMe announced more than $750,000 has been raised for athletes’ training and traveling costs. GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon shared: “More and more, athletes and sports teams—from Little… Read More

August 5, 2016 @ 12:59 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Assetz Capital one of the UK’s largest peer-to-peer lenders, announced it is predicting that both savers and borrowers will continue to turn to alternative finance companies in increasing numbers as Bank of England slashes interest rates from 0.5% to 0.25%. The website reported, peer-to-peer lending platforms remain largely untouched… Read More

August 5, 2016 @ 11:46 am By JD Alois  |  

Earlier this week PwC (under the DeNovo label) published a wide-ranging report on the evolution of Fintech. The document was the production of many PwC executives covering topics like blockchain, payments, banking and the overall transformation of financial services. In one respect the report is… Read More

August 5, 2016 @ 11:29 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Elevate, a provider of innovative online credit solutions for non-prime consumers, announced on Thursday it appointed former GE executive director, Al Comeaux, as its new chief communication officer. Comeaux has nearly 30 years of digital and online communication experience and has led communication efforts at Sabre,… Read More

August 5, 2016 @ 11:22 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

This week, Kickstarter success Formlabs announced it had secured $35 million during a Series B Funding Round, which was led by Foundry and Autodesk with participation from existing investors such as DFJ Growth, Pitango Venture Capital, and Pascal Cagni. Formlabs’ total investment to date is… Read More

August 5, 2016 @ 10:49 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

On Friday, India-based peer-to-peer lending platform, i2iFunding, announced its new investor protection fund, Principal Protection Fund, which reportedly will allow investors to have 100% protection against loan defaults. Sharing details about the fund, Vaibhav Pandey, co-founder and CEO of i2ifunding, stated: “The principal protection fund is… Read More

August 5, 2016 @ 10:15 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Westpac announced another AUS$50 million commitment into a second fund to be managed by Reinventure Group, according to a release. Reinventure, cofounded by Danny Gilligan and Simon Cant, makes investments from Seed through to Series A and up, with a particular focus on disruptive technologies with a direct… Read More

August 5, 2016 @ 9:18 am By Erin Hobey  |  

In late July, Barcelona-based Capital Cell received Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) approval to operate as a “Participatory Financing Platform.” This authorization includes the capability to select and publish financing projects and also gives Capital Cell the right to operate as an investment… Read More