Who Let the Dog Out:
On New Crowdfunding Rules and Why It Is Time for Us to Wise Up
By Victoria Silchenko
EXCERPT:
Colin Mangham belongs to a group of people adoringly called angel investors which last year counted only 268,160 active members (out of 8.99 million U.S. households with accredited status) investing a combined $22.9 billion. Colin, who is also an entrepreneur himself, brought up an interesting point about equity based crowdfunding:
“This is where the real power of things like peer ratings systems, which have been made mainstream by eBay in commerce and the likes of Quora in knowledge share, could create powerful funding ecosystems that can flourish and sustain themselves. A deep and wide reaching platform that attracts and qualifies financial backers that are also real fans who will gladly, compellingly, and even loudly promote your company fueled by their sense of ownership and affinity for what you stand for, and the good things your venture will bring into the world.”
Many of us seem locked into a belief that new “crowd- investors” will seek pure financial returns. But the reality is that such market exists already – it is called Wall Street and on average stocks are still the most profitable investment. There are also commodities or real estate — passive investments with no impact, in other words.
When I asked Korstiaan Zandvliet, a founder of Symbid (Netherlands), the first equity based crowdfunding platform in Europe, with 23 ventures successfully funded as of today (and no fraud), which industries have been the most popular among crowd-investors, he revealed that “investments are industry agnostic”, and that “social cause ventures have better performances on the platform”. Are you thinking what I am thinking? Welcome to the upgraded version of capitalism.
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Full article: www.huffingtonpost.com/victoria-silchenko/who-let-the-dog-out-on-ne_b_4215647.html