The Crowdfunding Industry in 2013 and Beyond. Editor’s Note: In this guest post, CrowdsUnite CEO and founder Alex Feldman predicts the shape and scope of the crowdfunding industry in the coming years. It appears exclusively on Crowdsourcing.org. Due to the passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act and a global explosion of crowdfunding platforms, 2012 was an amazing year for crowdfunding — and 2013 is poised to be even bigger. Three major trends currently dominate the industry: platform consolidation, niche platform growth, and the development of alternative crowdfunding solutions.
One of the earlier examples of consolidation occurred during the summer of 2012, when EarlyShares acquired HelpersUnite. More recently, two U.K. reward-based platforms, Crowdfunder and Peoplefund.it, merged to defend their turf against Kickstarter. Meanwhile, white label solutions like Launcht, invested.in, and catarse.me fueled a rapid expansion of niche platforms focused on a specific region, category, or demographic. Bandu: The watch that slows you down. Crowd Investing | Wefunder. Raise Money for YOU! How to raise money on your donation website! Crowdfunding. Kickstarter is funding the commercialization of new technologies.
Entrepreneurs can post videos and pictures on Kickstarter to attract pledges for projects. Some success stories (clockwise from top left): Elevation iPhone dock$1,460,000 Double Fine Adventure (video game)$3,330,000 Twine Wi-Fi sensors$557,000 CloudFTP wireless thumb drive hub$262,000 PrintrBot 3-D printer$831,000 The Order of the Stick(comic book)$1,250,000 WHOKickstarter New York City TECHNOLOGY An alternative to angel or venture capital investment helps fund tech startups. IndiegogoSan Francisco CrowdcubeExeter, U.K. SeedrsLondon WeFunderCambridge, Massachusetts GrowVCHong Kong Kickstarter, a New York City–based website originally founded to support creative projects, has become a force in financing technology startups.
This crowdfunding model offers an alternative to traditional means of raising startup funds for some types of businesses, such as Web or design firms. Stompy: The Giant, Rideable Walking Robot by Project Hexapod. Wow, we've reached $65,000 in 11 days! Thank you all so much for your support, this has been such an amazing ride so far! We want to take a quick moment to point out our next stretch goal - this is what will happen if we keep going: At $95,000, we’ll drop in what we call the “Performance Upgrade”. We’ll integrate a number of new sensors that will let us more accurately detect and respond to rough terrain, allowing for a smooth ride over a much greater variety of terrain. We’ll upgrade our hydraulic powerplant to allow for a higher ground speed. And now, back to our Kickstarter page! We dream of a world where imagination becomes reality simply because enough passionate people decide that an idea has merit. The first step in achieving that dream for us is building a rideable, 18 foot wide, 4,000 pound, 6-legged, engine-powered hydraulic walking robot named Stompy, and sharing exactly how we did it with the world.
We are Project Hexapod. Stompy is 6 giant steps towards that dream. What Technologies Will Crowdfunding Create? Altered state: Inventor Jay Silver holds up a printed circuit board that turns ordinary objects into joystick controls. He raised more than $500,000 from the public to manufacture it. It’s becoming a common story. A project listed on Kickstarter, the Internet crowdfunding website, ends up wildly exceeding its financial goals. Suddenly, someone is in business. That’s what happened to inventor Jay Silver, creator of MaKey MaKey, an “invention kit” consisting of a processor board and alligator clips that turns objects with high electrical resistance—bananas, Play-Doh, human flesh—into computer controllers.
Since then, it’s been a race to negotiate with Chinese manufacturers, customs agents, and wholesalers to produce and ship what will be the first product of Silver’s newly incorporated company, JoyLabz. In the U.S., Internet funding occurs on Indiegogo, GoFundMe, and similar websites that permit people to donate money to projects, including films and journalism. Crowdfunding site pays authors to release DRM-free e-books. Gain instant and exclusive access to over 5,000 of the most creative ideas, innovations and startups on our database and use our smart filters to take you direct to those that are most relevant to your industry and your needs. Not interested? You can still browse articles published in the last 30 days from our homepage and receive your daily and weekly fix of entrepreneurial ideas through our free newsletters.
This Could Change Healthtech Startup Funding Forever. The World Reacts to Imminent Crowdfunding in the U.S. Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill legalizing crowdfunded investments on to President Obama for his signature and the past few days the nation and world have continued to react. Crowdsourcing.org's own Carl Esposti laid out the potential the new framework holds in stories featured in Entrepreneur and the New York Times, among others. “There will be a significant number of equity-based crowdfunding platforms in the next years -- probably hundreds and hundreds,” he told Entrepreneur's Catherine Clifford. Crowdfunder CEO Chance Barnett also gave this detailed breakdown last week on what crowdfunding will mean for Silicon Valley in the short term.
For a little bit more balanced conversation, it's also worth checking out this debate between Barnett and Thomas Murphy, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP. Now that the JOBS Act has passed, we are moving to the next phase of development on a two-track strategy. Crowdsourcing.org: The World Reacts to Immine... Comparison of Crowdfunding Websites. Wholesalewigsonline.com. How to raise money from crowds: 11 crowdfunding platforms and examples. Crowdfunding is one of the more interesting (and important) neologisms of the last few years. It takes the idea of crowdsourcing (getting services delivered by crowds) and applies it to raising money. In a later post I will write about the implications of the rise of crowdfunding for venture capital and other early stage funding sources.
Here I will just cover some examples of crowdfunding, many of them in creative domains. Kickstarter is a well developed creative crowdfunding platform, covering films, music, games, theatre, technology and far more. It uses the common all-or-nothing model, so projects are only funded if they raise their target funds in a defined period. IndieGogo, originally providing crowdfunding for independent filmmakers, has diversified across other creative, environmental, and community endeavours. Sellaband provides a space for musicians to raise money, having already raised over $3 million for bands who want to record, tour, or promote their music. Sellaband. Project Powerup - A New Way to Fund Startups & Small Business.
Proposal for a new crowdfunding model: Betting to win. The other day I caught up for a coffee with Ryan Wardell, the founder of Project Powerup, a crowdfunding site focused on startups. Project Startup uses the classic crowdfunding model used by Kickstarter, Indie GoGo, Sellaband and other crowdfunding platforms for funding creative projects, in which funders are rewarded by receiving products, services, preferential treatment, and feeling good, but no equity. I have written many times about the limits on equity crowdfunding and what goes beyond, and there is a detailed chapter on equity crowdfunding in my forthcoming book on effective approaches to crowdsourcing.
We discussed the legislation in most developed countries that forbids small equity investments in private companies. Then an idea came to me about how to go about this. I can’t see that I’ll be able to do this myself for the foreseeable future, given our existing project schedule, so I’d like to throw it out there as a gift for whoever would like to take it and do it. Emmy's Organics - Gift to Greatness! -- IndieGoGo. Who We Are. Emmy's Organics is a Gluten-free, Vegan and Raw Foods company based in Ithaca, NY. It is owned and operated by us, Ian and Samantha - we are your not-so-typical "twenty somethings" with a love for pure foods, community, and healthy bodies.
With our years of experience in whole food preparation, we wanted to create a vehicle for inspiration and a way to provide the best food on the planet to our community and beyond! We are committed to YOU having it all. We pride ourselves on the quality, creativity & sustainability of the products we offer. In respect for our bodies & the earth, we use the finest raw organic ingredients in everything we make and biodegradable/eco-friendly resources for our packaging. Our food is derived from nature, which in return nourishes us in the best way possible.
Check out our website to learn more: Emmy's Organics.com The Intention. Our sights are set and we're ready to take off! Your Contribution. How will your money be spent? Could Facebook Raise Capital For Entrepreneurs? Social networks, including Facebook, may become platforms for small businesses to raise capital, if the U.S. House of Representatives has its way.
The House Financial Services committee last week passed legislation that would remove a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that makes it harder for companies to raise money by seeking small contributions. Removing the rule would allow for so-called “crowd funding” of new business entities through social networking sites. The bill, H.R. 2930, also called the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act, would specifically enable new businesses to use crowd funding to accept and pool donations of up to $1 million without having to register with the SEC. In exchange for the investment, funders would receive an equity stake in the business. The bill will go to the House floor for a vote later this week, and it is expected to pass with support from both sides of the aisle, before moving to the U.S.