Opinion

April 15, 2020 @ 10:28 am By JD Alois  |  

The three largest European digital banks have over 18 million registered users combined. That number is predicted to soar to over 23 million by the end of this year, according to a writeup by Finanso. Today, Revolut (UK) is the biggest at over 10 million… Read More

April 15, 2020 @ 8:54 am By JD Alois  |  

Charlotte Crosswell, CEO of Innovate Finance, has posted an open letter in support of Fintech utilization during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the UK, the government has received some criticism for being slow to empower Fintech’s to help facilitate the Coronavirus programs designed to support the… Read More

April 14, 2020 @ 2:56 pm By JD Alois  |  

Startups and early-stage firms are vital to any economy that seeks to foster robust growth and wealth creation. Yet many early-stage firms are focused more on growth than earnings, and thus would not qualify for the programs bundled together by the UK government during the… Read More

April 11, 2020 @ 5:00 pm By Ben DiScipio  |  

Earlier this month, The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a set of amendments to the exemptive framework under the Securities Act of 1933. This includes a notable update to Reg CF – increasing the funding cap from its current $1.07 million to $5 million…. Read More

April 10, 2020 @ 12:04 pm By JD Alois  |  

It will take some time to fully understand the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic but clearly the economic fallout will be profound. Markets have tanked, default risks are rising and unemployment is moving up rapidly in a historic fashion. Simultaneously governments everywhere are moving… Read More

April 8, 2020 @ 2:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

Telegram has been engaged in an ongoing battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the sale of GRAM tokens – an offering that raised $1.7 billion. The legal fisticuffs kicked off last October when the SEC filed an emergency action and obtained a… Read More

April 8, 2020 @ 9:07 am By JD Alois  |  

Last weekend, a campaign to aid early-stage UK firms, entitled Save Our Startups, was launched by a group of very high profile platforms, founders, investors, and advocacy groups. An Open Letter addressed to the PM was included and as of today over 4500 individuals have… Read More

April 7, 2020 @ 8:20 am By JD Alois  |  

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged all UK businesses. But smaller firms and early-stage companies may end up bearing the brunt of the impact as these companies can be less well prepared to endure an ongoing economic shutdown. Today, the Enterprise Investment Scheme Association (EISA) is… Read More

April 5, 2020 @ 7:07 pm By JD Alois  |  

Fintechs are starting to furlough employees as the economy tanks due to the COVID-19 induced decline. While not officially in recession, major economies are bracing for the worse while businesses are compelled to let employees go as business activity slows. On Monday, it was reported… Read More

April 3, 2020 @ 10:04 am By JD Alois  |  

Following intense criticism regarding the confines of the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), HM Treasury expanded the program in a move to support a broader range of businesses – most importantly smaller firms. Last week, Rangewell, a business finance specialist, posted an open letter… Read More

April 2, 2020 @ 8:30 pm By Renaud Laplanche  |  

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Our biggest concern this year was going to be the Presidential election, or for some of us the Tokyo Olympics or the Warriors missing the NBA playoffs. Instead, the world’s population is experiencing an unprecedented shock that is… Read More

March 31, 2020 @ 11:46 am By Karsten Wenzlaff and Ronald Kleverlaan  |  

The Crowdfunding industry is well aware of what economists call externalities – the fact that behavior of some people has an unintended impact on other people. Positive externalities can be observed on the Crowdfunding platforms every day due to the willingness of people to join… Read More

March 30, 2020 @ 2:36 pm By JD Alois  |  

Seedrs founder and Chairman Jeff Lynn has distributed his thoughts on the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the UK government’s approach to aid the struggling economy – more specifically for early-stage firms. Lynn dices the issue up between the Good, the Bad and… Read More

March 30, 2020 @ 7:30 am By Andrés Abumohor  |  

Small businesses in emerging economies are notoriously underfinanced. Despite making up over 99.5% of the economy in Latin America, SMEs face a financing gap in the trillions of dollars. For example, up to 78% of small businesses in Argentina and 45% in Peru struggle to… Read More

March 28, 2020 @ 8:58 am By Barry James  |  

Why we may not be surprised but we must be outraged! The banks are a danger to our society – and, according to the BIS (the Centralbank’s Central Bank)  an unnecessary one at that. The UK government has over the last two weeks taken unprecedented… Read More

March 27, 2020 @ 7:00 pm By Max Lyadvinsky  |  

Do you ever step back and consider how quickly tech has changed, well, everything? Better devices spurred better internet connection and new cultural contexts. It is almost hard to remember a time when people did not always have connected computers in their back pockets. The… Read More

March 25, 2020 @ 7:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

On March 4th the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a proposal to amend multiple securities exemptions. If enacted, the proposed amendments would be the largest changes to securities law since the passage of the JOBS Act, and will strengthen the small business and startup… Read More

March 24, 2020 @ 9:40 am By Barry James  |  

It is we, the crowd, who will rebuild the economy after Covid-19. We need the means to do it. The last couple of weeks has revealed who it is that runs the real economy, beyond the glass towers that loom over everything else, imposing their… Read More

March 23, 2020 @ 5:00 pm By Dror Futter  |  

Remember all those articles about whether venture was overvalued?  With blinding speed, they now seem quaint.  Bluntly stated, most venture-backed companies are in a fight for survival.    Although certain areas of life sciences may do somewhat better, I think the impact will be widely felt. … Read More

March 19, 2020 @ 5:14 pm By JD Alois  |  

After less than a week of COVID-19 fueled lockdown, it seems like the world has been turned upside down as a new reality has set in due to “social distancing” and “shelter in place” demands. In the US, the National Guard is not yet patrolling… Read More