Strategy

May 4, 2015 @ 2:36 pm By JD Alois  |  

The correlation between risk and reward is an important relationship for all asset classes. The popularity of marketplace lending has been driven by the solid returns generated at a perceived lower level of risk.  Lending Club, the largest peer to peer lender in the United States, has… Read More

May 1, 2015 @ 11:18 am By JD Alois  |  

MIT Sloan Assistant Professor Christian Catalini has targeted his research on the economics of innovation, entrepreneurial finance and crowdfunding.  Catalini is part of an elite few academicians who are analyzing the emergent investment crowdfunding space, so when he shares his findings, and associated perspective, it is… Read More

April 30, 2015 @ 10:25 am By James A. Jones  |  

A fintech-focused SDIRA newcomer who embraces technology will likely obsolete present-day providers Don’t get me wrong. Self-Directed IRAs are the greatest thing since sliced bread. They allow us to dramatically diversify our retirement portfolios with the asset classes typically reserved for the wealthy: real estate,… Read More

April 29, 2015 @ 5:26 pm By JD Alois  |  

Yes KISS means Keep It Simple Stupid, but in this case it means Keep It Simple Security. SeedInvest, a leading investment crowdfunding platform, has announced they will no longer assess legal review fees to startups using KISS Convertible Note documents. SeedInvest is a highly selective… Read More

April 23, 2015 @ 9:40 am By Anthony Zeoli & Kiran Lingam  |  

They say that there is no such thing as bad press but I am not so sure that I agree with that statement. While this may be the case for the Kardashians, I don’t think the same holds true for the crowdfunding/P2P lending industries. In… Read More

April 16, 2015 @ 5:45 pm By JD Alois  |  

This peer to peer lending guide (embedded below) is designed to introduce financial advisors, and those more financially sophisticated types, to the world of peer to peer investing. Peer to peer investing is the new hotness in the financial world. The efficiency of allocation generated by… Read More

April 16, 2015 @ 4:17 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Offering up new ways for campaigns to become more successful, global crowdfunding platform Kickstarter recently unveiled its 96 Reward Ideas to help achieve funding goals. Team members, Carol Benovic and Sid Orlando, took to the platform’s blog and wrote: “Offering great rewards is one of the best ways to encourage support… Read More

April 10, 2015 @ 12:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

Portland, Oregon based Crowd Supply has announced seed funding in the amount of $585,000 led by the Portland Seed Fund with participation from SOSVentures, Inspiration Ventures plus several Angels. Launched in 2013, Crowd Supply is a “full service crowdfunding and product development platform for hardware… Read More

April 8, 2015 @ 9:00 am By JD Alois  |  

Orchard, the nexus of institutional investors into the marketplace, or peer to peer lending space, has published a list of best practices to invest in this new asset class. The early days of P2P was slow to grow as platforms experimented and solidified processes and… Read More

April 7, 2015 @ 5:51 pm By Barry James  |  

5 Must-Know Things Before You Launch Your #Crowdfund One glance at this u-shaped graph of 200,000 crowdfunds is enough to tell the story to anyone who’s seen many crowdfunds succeed and fail. It confirms what we know – but shows it’s far starker a picture… Read More

April 7, 2015 @ 3:19 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Last month, Indiegogo’s Campaign Specialist and writer of Crowdfunding for Filmmakers: The Way to a Successful Film Campaign, John T. Trigonis, offered up his funding advice during a TEDx event in Jersey City. The discussion’s description reads: “Ever since the Statue of Liberty, crowdfunding has been bringing people together in… Read More

April 7, 2015 @ 11:55 am By Jason Mesec  |  

The wildly popular Kickstarter crowdfunding platform has revolutionized project funding. More than a hundred projects have raised over a million dollars. What do the most funded Kickstarters have in common? They used video to capture people’s imagination and convinced strangers to give them money for… Read More

April 2, 2015 @ 9:29 am By Erin Hobey  |  

With an increasing number of start-ups launching with crowdfunding platforms, eBay has turned into a logical “step two” for entrepreneurs like FluxMob’s cofounders who are looking to expand their product’s reach.  Alan Tran and his childhood friend Justin Zito swiftly raised $90,253 in initial funds for their tech… Read More

March 24, 2015 @ 11:52 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Kauffman Foundation is an admirable research and advocacy group that promotes the benefits of entrepreneurism. The organizations ethos is that developing self-sufficient people and a vibrant economy & society are pretty important things, something most level headed people would quickly concur.  Last week Arnobio Morelix from… Read More

March 22, 2015 @ 11:13 am By JD Alois  |  

This is a bit of an interesting strategy.  Efneo, a company based in Poland that is operated by a father / sons team, has created an aftermarket 3 speed front bicycle gearbox. The gears are enclosed so the hardware is pretty sleek looking. This is… Read More

March 20, 2015 @ 8:59 am By JD Alois  |  

The European Commission has been pushing forward with a diverse array of initiatives to improve economic growth and foster an innovation economy. This is not an easy task but improving the environment for SME’s is clearly the path forward. Last year the Commission issued a… Read More

March 19, 2015 @ 2:08 am By Midori Yoshimura  |  

Many in the crowdfunding world are abuzz with news about Australian startups–from Flow Hive, Indiegogo’s most funded crowdfunding project, to CrowdfundUp, Australia’s first real estate crowdfunding platform. And in today’s news, angel investor group Sydney Angels is partnering with equity-based crowdfunding platform VentureCrowd to offer more Australian startups the… Read More

March 18, 2015 @ 9:28 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Securities and Exchange Commission has a pretty important, and at times overwhelming, task.  Regulating and enforcing the largest securities markets on the planet is a profound responsibility. The advent of the internet has added a new, and quite challenging, variable to the process as… Read More

March 15, 2015 @ 5:51 pm By JD Alois  |  

Lima, a crowdfunding project that promised to create your own virtual cloud based storage system – using your own hardware, successfully raised over $1.2 million crowdfunding on Kickstarter back in 2013. The funding goal was set at $69,000 – an amount that was topped in just 12… Read More

March 13, 2015 @ 12:53 pm By Charles Kaufman and Jor Law  |  

This the second part, of a two part series, reviewing Bad Actors in private placements.  The first article may be viewed here. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued new Rule 506(d) in 2013, a rule that bars felons and other specified “bad actors” from… Read More