Crowdfunding via customers is the new startup capital. When the JOBS Act was signed in April, the startup community gave itself a collective high five. Crowdfunding would enable startups to reach out to the whole world to get access to funding, not just a small cabal of investors living in a 20-mile radius of Menlo Park. But hidden in the headlines was a much more powerful underlying trend. With the JOBS Act came the creation of an entirely new class of capital that could be far more valuable to startups: customer capital. Meet the new investor class: Customers. Instead of raising capital from VCs to build a product, entrepreneurs can skip the line and reach out to customers before the product is actually produced.
We’ve all dealt with pre-orders before, whether it’s the new iPad or a blockbuster summer movie. A big, juicy new fund. While there is a big, amount of capital available from VCs, angel investors and private equity folks, the amount of capital available for entrepreneurs when you count the customer market is much larger. Crowdfunding becomes a reality for startups - GrowVC (press release) Welcome. Finance free software. People Fund - People Fund. Tom Dawkins's Answers on Kickstarter. Does Crowdfunding Work for Early Stage Growth Companies?