General News

April 18, 2016 @ 8:31 am By JD Alois  |  

Regulation A+, an updated exemption created by Title IV of the JOBS Act of 2012, took a largely moribund exemption and turned it into something useful. Old Reg A was crippled by state blue sky review. The SEC, given the necessary latitude by Congress to… Read More

April 16, 2016 @ 2:52 pm By JD Alois  |  

Coming on the heels of the announcement of the launch of their payments partner program, multiple news outlets are pointing to Amazon as gearing up for a deeper Fintech push. The payments program helps by providing an Amazon-branded option for their growing legion of e-commerce… Read More

April 15, 2016 @ 4:52 pm By JD Alois  |  

EquityZen is a platform that seeks to provide liquidity in private company securities. This is one company that has benefited from the plunging decline in early stage IPOs. Founders Atish Davda, Shriram Bhashyam, and Phil Haslett created the company with a single ambition: to redesign… Read More

April 15, 2016 @ 2:52 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

In early March Witt Energy launched a Crowdcube campaign to secure £750,000 for its patented fully scalable innovative energy harvesting system. During its first week on the equity crowdfunding platform, the UK tech company scored £500,000.  Now, in the campaign’s final hours the amount raised for 7.08% equity has surpassed the… Read More

April 15, 2016 @ 10:50 am By JD Alois  |  

This is important.  In the United States, the wealth disparity is growing – not closing. While there are multiple reasons why this wealth gap has occurred, the growing dominance of big money over smaller investors has clearly exacerbated this societal challenge.  Unfortunately, policy officials have… Read More

April 15, 2016 @ 10:41 am By Erin Hobey  |  

The California Department of Business Oversight (DBO) has issued a summary report of aggregate data provided by the companies that responded to the DBO’s online survey sent to 14 marketplace lenders engaged in online consumer and/or small business lending (or other types of financing such as merchant cash advances)…. Read More

April 15, 2016 @ 10:21 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Montreal-based FinTech company Mobeewave has launched its mobile P2P payment application PayMeTap to people across Canada. This free application allows users to securely accept a payment by tapping their phone with a credit card. Available for Android in the Google Play Store, PayMeTap aims to enable… Read More

April 15, 2016 @ 7:46 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Funding Circle, a small-business lending platform, hired Deutsche Bank AG as the sole  arranger of the first securitization of P2P loans in Europe, according to a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. The firm will meet investors in London April 18-20 to discuss a possible deal in pounds,… Read More

April 15, 2016 @ 7:24 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Frost & Sullivan’s latest study, “Fintech in Australia – Trends, Forecasts and Analysis 2015 – 2020” forecasts that the Australian Fintech Sector will grow at a CAGR of 76.36% and reach A$4.2 billion by 2020; of which A$1 billion will be completely new added value to… Read More

April 15, 2016 @ 7:06 am By Erin Hobey  |  

  Beyond Bank, one of Australia’s largest customer owned banks, has achieved recognition as a Celent Model Bank for 2016. The award was made for its omni-channel customer engagement platform, designed and delivered by Avoka, the leader in digital customer acquisition for financial services. The… Read More

April 15, 2016 @ 12:01 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Venture capitalists invested $12.1 billion in 969 deals in the first quarter of 2016, according to the MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), based on data provided by Thomson Reuters. Total venture dollars deployed to startup companies for… Read More

April 14, 2016 @ 5:42 pm By JD Alois  |  

Event organizer Crowdfinders has joined with a group of high-profile partners to launch an annual £100 million funding drive to raise both equity and debt capital to help scale UK SMEs. The partnership includes the following entities; Seedrs, SyndicateRoom, UK Business Angels Association (UKBAA), Crowdcube,… Read More

April 14, 2016 @ 12:28 pm By Erin Hobey  |  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore is to host a week-long ‘Fintech Festival’ to promote the island economy as a global hub for innovative financial services. The idea was mentioned in a speech by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic and… Read More

April 14, 2016 @ 11:54 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Global investment in fintech ventures in the first quarter of 2016 reached $5.3 billion, a 67 percent increase over the same period last year, and the percentage of investments going to fintech companies in Europe and Asia-Pacific nearly doubled to 62 percent. These are among… Read More

April 14, 2016 @ 11:36 am By Erin Hobey  |  

The FCA is preparing to launch a #FinTech “regulatory sandbox“ which will include two sandbox cohorts a year; the FCA will accept applications for a place in the first from 9 May 2016.  Successful applicants will be able to test their ideas “without immediately incurring all the normal regulatory consequences”… Read More

April 14, 2016 @ 11:13 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

QuickLiquidity announced on Thursday that it has acquired partnership interest in a $30 million real estate portfolio, which reportedly portfolio consists of 5 triple net lease CVS’s and 3 Hy-Vee’s, totaling over 220,000-square-feet of single tenant properties with long-term leases and self-amortizing loans. A. Yoni Miller,… Read More

April 14, 2016 @ 11:00 am By Erin Hobey  |  

With the confidence of 43 private investors, the Spanish energy tech firm Vagalume Energy secured 228,620€ on Crowdcube with an average investment of 5,316€.  Grupo Innoven Inversiones, led by Raúl Guerrero Gómez, a business angel of RedInvest,  as well as other investments from other professionals from the energy sector endorsed… Read More

April 14, 2016 @ 9:45 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Offering up an insight on China’s market growth, China Rapid Finance’s CEO, Dr. Zane Wang, spoke at the LendIt USA 2016 conference that China has become the largest and fastest-growing online lending market in the world. Wang explained that the China market has huge potential and growth opportunities,… Read More

April 14, 2016 @ 8:55 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

The Global Crowdfunding Convention (GCC), an annual event where people gather to network and learn about #crowdfunding, today announced that its fifth annual event will be held October 15-17, 2016 at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.  For two days, the GCC will host crowdfunding… Read More

April 14, 2016 @ 8:44 am By JD Alois  |  

The Small Business Finance Association (SBFA) has published a list of “best practices” for the alternative finance industry, coordinating the document with the Lendit conference this week. The SBFA was formerly named the North American Merchant Advance Association (NAMAA), a non-profit advocacy group that  represented… Read More