General News

Massachusetts and Crowdfunding

There was a recent release this past week coming from a law firm, titled: Are Massachusetts Crowdfunding Actions a Sign of Things to Come? This appeared to highlight the forthcoming risks of crowdfunding.  The statement starts by declaring; Massachusetts’s regulators recently filed fraud actions against… Read More

VC in 2013: Whitney Johnson of Rose Park on the Wisdom of Crowdfunding

As 2012 comes to a close, we asked several venture capital investors to reflect on the past year and give us their outlook for 2013. Continuing our series is Whitney Johnson, angel investor and co-founder of Boston-based Rose Park Advisors. Johnson speaks about the opportunities in seed-stage… Read More

An Alternative Model for Crowdfunding

Shares of Ma ‘n’ Pa’s Grocery and Funeral Services seem likely to be stalled in their release to the public. While the café-crematorium concept hasn’t caught on with the big boys, companies were hopeful that the end of the year would see new legislation regarding crowd-sourced… Read More

Kickstarter in 2012: 52,000 backers contributed $79 million to game-related projects

As we punch the clock on 2012, we can safely call it the year of Kickstarter … at least for games. After developer Double Fine (The Cave, Psychonauts) broke the crowdfunding concept wide open with its hugely successful campaign that raised over $3.45 million to produce a… Read More

2012: The Year Music Crowdfunding Broke

2012 was a big year for music crowdfunding. Though crowdfunding isn’t new, this year was marked by a general buildout of the music crowdfunding space from new services to wide ranging campaigns, outstanding crowdfunding campaigns on the parts of musicians with powerful fanbases and the notable emergence of concert crowdfunding as a… Read More

Quote Compares Crowdfunding to Fracking

Interesting quote attributed to Jason Best and Sherwood (Woodie) Neiss from Crowdfund Capital Advisors (CCA). This is from a piece in Business News Daily talking about trends for 2013: “Small businesses produce 50 percent of the jobs in America, but have access to 1 percent… Read More

Crowdfunding and 506 Private Placements

I read an exceptional article back in November written by Daniel Gorfine and Ben Miller.  Daniel is Director of Special Projects & Legal Counsel for the esteemed Milken Institute and Ben is Co-Founder of Fundrise – a direct investment platform for local real estate and… Read More

Crowdfunding Books: The Latest Publishing Industry Trend

Traditional book publishers are struggling to stay relevant in a constantly changing industry. The rise of e-books and self-publishing has continued to have a strong impact in the publishing world, and now crowdfunding is the latest trend to join them. More authors are discovering the… Read More

Why the S.E.C. Is Likely to Miss Its Deadline to Write Crowdfunding Rules

When the Jobs Act became law in April, supporters proclaimed a new era for small businesses seeking to raise money. The “game changer,” as President Obama put it in the Rose Garden as he signed the bill, was a provision to allow small companies to… Read More

RocketHub Ponders Its Future in Crowdfunding

We have published a story about why the Securities and Exchange Commission has struggled to write the rules that will carry out equity crowdfunding for small businesses. One company that has been at the forefront of the effort to influence those rules is RocketHub, a… Read More

For small businesses, a series of small loans

The Columbus Chamber is offering small businesses a new way to raise money by telling them to join the crowd. In a new partnership, the chamber is making SoMoLend its first recommendation for “crowdfunding,” which involves raising money through small pledges online. “We do over… Read More

Crowdfunding social network FanBlaze to launch in January

The FanBlaze social network offers something new and innovative in crowdfunding—the site will benefit filmmakers, artists and musicians with their fans in a whole new way of engagement. “I like to suggest it’s equatable to frequent- flyer-miles for fans, meets, network-marketing for creatives,” says CEO… Read More

10,000 Maniacs ready to release album thanks to fans’ support

10,000 Maniacs’ PledgeMusic.com crowd-funding campaign reached its goal Friday, allowing the band to independently release a new album entitled “Music From The Motion Picture.” According to Steve Gustafson, founding member of 10,000 Maniacs, the band went with PledgeMusic.com to fund the new album because it… Read More

I was in ‘Home Alone’ and this is how it changed my life

Being a child actor is a dangerous game. Statistically it sure seems that if you make it big when you’re still small, you’re likely in for a rough ride. Just think of all the good examples that pop to mind: River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Corey… Read More

CrowdFunding Incubator Predicts Shakeup In Crowdfunding Industry

Douglas E. Castle, the Chief Executive Officer of CrowdFunding Incubator LLC (“CFI”), predicts a substantial shakeup in the crowdfunding industry in 2013. The disruption will begin where both project promoters and contributors, who have been only remotely involved with the projects which they have helped… Read More

Unlocking the global trillion-dollar crowdfunding market

Now here is the one percent you do want to hear about! The world is on the precipice of creating a trillion-dollar crowdfunding market. In Australia, the ASSOB has offered a crowdfunding investment portal since 2005. In the UK, equity crowdfunding is already in progress, with investment platforms such as Crowdcube and Seedups. And… Read More

Pass the Hat, Save the Arts?

PARIS — In the early rush to turn crowd-funding online into a new source of public revenue to buy everything from medieval ivory statues in France to a gallery for dinosaur bones in Canada there’s a cautionary tale: It doesn’t always work. The Louvre is… Read More

In Need, French Museums Turn to Masses, Chapeaux in Hand

PARIS — The crass term for it is begging, but the French prefer a loftier description: “participatory financing.” For as little as a single euro even the most ordinary art connoisseur can join the fund-raising fraternité that is working to restore the dome of the… Read More

Disrupting the Hollywood Business Model

Around 1.3 billion tickets were sold in North America in 2011; that is about the same number of tickets sold a decade ago. This is because the upswing in mobile and tablet usage, and the popularity of streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, have increased… Read More

Funding through KickStarter can be tricky

April 21 marked an amazing milestone for Jon Ramaci and his Cambridge start-up, iCache. He’d set out to raise $50,000 on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter for an iPhone ­accessory that would let users carry digital copies of all those credit, debit, and loyalty cards that… Read More

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