Tagged: perspective

An Analysis of the First Approved Real Estate Crowdfunding Regulation A+ Filing

  Since the SEC announced the intent to implement the new Regulation A+ rules in March, there’s been a lot of hype around the potential for Regulation A+. This newly implemented offering mechanism has been heralded for its ability to bring increased opportunities to the… Read More

The Next Big Crowdfunding Risk

The investment crowdfunding space is on fire – growing by more than 1000% a year. Within real estate alone, total investment is projected to hit $2.5 billion by the end of December. Meanwhile, FinTech has become glorified as a revolution in finance ready to take… Read More

How the Tiny Estonian Government Can Give a Boost to the Global Crowdfunding Industry with their e-Residency Project  

The e-Residency project is an initiative of the Estonian government to offer every world citizen the possibility to become an e-Resident of Estonia. As a side effect they could solve a number of problems for current Crowdfunding platforms with this government backed e-identity program and boost the industry…. Read More

Part Two: Is Culture Killing Equity Crowdfunding in Canada?  

Causes and Lessons to be learned from more Developed Markets In this three-part series, we examine whether “conservative” Canadian business culture is having a negative effect on equity crowdfunding taking hold in Canada.  In Part I of this series we took a snapshot of equity… Read More

Regulators Need to Forget Yesterday Says Niederer. Look to Tomorrow & Embrace Equity Crowdfunding

Paul Niederer, CEO of ASSOB  – a trailblazing investment crowdfunding platform in Australia, makes a very valid point. Regulators are too rooted in the past and they are at risk of botching the future as the finance industry inevitably moves online. Australia is in the… Read More

Crowd-Innovation: How to Exploit the Power of the Crowd & Innovate Products & Processes

Cyclically, innovation gets the top of the corporate agenda as a growth enabler that can play a major role in replacing existing products or services and in creating new markets, so anticipating future needs and eventually disrupting the current business models. But the “innovator’s dilemma”… Read More

Is the State of Washington Trying to Blow-Up Regulation A+?

The finalization of rules regarding Title IV of the JOBS Act was a watershed moment in the history of securities law and a leap forward for investment crowdfunding.  Title IV, now commonly referred to as Regulation A+, not only allows issuers to raise capital in… Read More

Dear Real Estate Industry, Prepare for the Millennials

The traditional world of real estate needs to prepare for the next wave of investors – Millennials. Currently ranging in age from 18 to 34, and numbering roughly 77 million, Millennials make up about one-fourth of the U.S. population – and are far less interested… Read More

How Will the Global Turmoil Affect Crowdfunding?

Hold the front page – the Chinese economy is slowing down. Who didn’t see that one coming? In an age of intertwined economies, extreme volatility in China is being exported globally. Calamity across the Chinese commodity markets this week is having largely foreseen global consequences…. Read More

The Two Problems Indiegogo Must Fix Now

The rewards-based crowdfunding realm has become a robust and diverse sector of the finance industry.  While some in the securities space look down upon platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, this is a misplaced perspective.  Rewards platforms have become an important testing ground, and funding… Read More

Dick Bove is Right About Dodd-Frank but Wrong About Marketplace Lending

Dick Bove, an equity research analyst and frequent commentator on CNBC, has published an Op-Ed on CNBC about the legislative disaster called Dodd-Frank.  Bove does not mince words when he states,  “I thought it would be impossible to find a worse piece of legislation in… Read More

Is Culture Killing Equity Crowdfunding in Canada?

  American culture is known for celebrating “winners.”  Canadians are known for being modest and risk averse.  Could this cultural difference explain why Canadian equity crowdfunding appears to be relatively underdeveloped so far?  We checked out the funds actually raised in 2015 and talked to some of Canada’s… Read More

An Australian Misnomer: Crowd-Sourced Equity Funding

The Australian government has recently released a consultation paper seeking feedback on their proposed framework for “crowd-sourced equity funding” (CSEF). The “CSEF” label is inaccurate, and likely to confuse both investors and companies. Instead, Australia should be adopting the globally-accepted term “Equity Crowdfunding”. The term, crowd-sourced equity… Read More

Lawrence Lessig, Creator of Crowdfunded MayDay PAC, is Running for President

Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Professor, iconoclast, and creator of MayDay PAC, has entered the 2016 Presidential election. Lessig is seeking the nomination of the Democratic party joining Bernie Sanders in the quest to dethrone Hillary Clinton from her anointed position as party standard bearer.  Lessig,… Read More

Niederer: Proposed Australian Regulatory Framework for Crowdfunding is Wrong

Paul Niederer, CEO of ASSOB – one of the very first investment crowdfunding platforms ever, has shared his opinion of the recently published a regulatory framework for crowdfunding in Australia and, in brief, he thinks it is wrong. Forest for the Trees Niedierer believes the… Read More

CNBC Talks Shadow Banking (Video)

Financial industry touchstone CNBC reviewed the hot topic of Silicon Valley gunning for the banking industry.  Old school types are quick to assign Marketplace Lending (P2P Lending) and equity crowdfunding to the shadow banking never-world but the reality is that internet finance is more efficient,… Read More

Marketplace Lending: A Need for Some Definition, Data & More Discourse. A Response to the US Treasury RFI

  As traditional lending tightened for consumers and small businesses, following the 2008 recession and the Dodd Frank regulatory environment that followed, alternative lending has now become quite the burgeoning new industry. And with alternative lenders ranging the gamut from near-bank products and terms to… Read More

Does it Matter Who Does the Lending on Peer-to-Peer Lending Platforms?

This is a question I get asked a lot. And the usual line of thinking of those asking the question is that it does matter.  The common assumption is that the increased activity of “institutional” funds is crowding out the core retail investors that platforms… Read More

How Good Is Too Good? The Underwriting Risks Of Crowdfunding Real Estate Deals

The awareness and popularity of real estate based equity crowdfunding (i.e. “RECfunds”) continues to grow exponentially. As do the number of real estate crowdfunding portals. RECFunds offer substantial benefits to today’s investors including access to multiple types of projects, smaller barriers to investment, and portfolio… Read More

SEC Commissioner Gallagher: Dodd-Frank has Failed. It is Strangling the Economy.

In what may be his last speech as an SEC Commissioner, Daniel Gallagher addressed the US Chamber of Commerce and criticized parts of the SEC, and much of the new world order of regulatory over-sight.   Gallagher scorched Dodd-Frank as a grandiose plan that has increased the fragility of… Read More

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