Crowd Source Capital

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 May 2022 08:41:00 +0000

Dear Rick Caruso,

I have an idea for your campaign to solve the homeless problem in Los Angeles and win the election.

I came to Los Angeles in my 20s and worked in the film business and got married and had a family and lived in Highland Park and started The Highland Park News.

My solution for the homeless problem in Los Angeles is to buy real estate for the homeless owned by the "unemployed and homeless" as their own ecosystem of ownership.

I took this project to MPs in the UK and they listened but I got stuck in the benefits department.

They understood the concept but were scared of its change and power. It is radical change using capitalism.

Pitch: Very simply take a $1.00 from the unemployed every Friday paycheck and buy real estate and keep going. The unemployed and homeless do up the properties in trust with equal shares to those who put in $1.00 - Crowd Source Capital - Trust

At present vested interests are paid $ to house the homeless on the streets or in tents. I am talking about giving them ownership in real estate that they own, fix, and rent out. Their very own ecosystem. Yes, it needs their permission, the government's permission, the state's permission but instead of spending and it's gone. It would be spent and owned by the very people society wants to move somewhere else. This model ends benefit culture and turns benefit into ownership into investment into permanent change.

Properties would be bought by the trust, owned by the Trust with the shareholders made up of those on benefits, and homeless. It would give them a permanent address. and a portion would go towards establishing mental health homes, staff, and help.

If you really want to give back. start this and its legacy will continue long after we are all gone. It will compound. And the general public will get behind it because it's the same model as the American dream. Currently, Los Angeles is being treated like a toilet with homeless, and crime. Real estate is your background you should get this concept and it just needs a few powerful people to say ok. And then wow we have lift off. Even though real estate prices have gone astronomic we can still compete, still buy, and still develop using benefit money every Friday to actually buy and include those who feel left behind.

Five minutes of your time. My good friend Henry Reyes from Highland Park is good friends with

a security guard who worked for you.

Sincerely

James de Rin

Partner

Crowd Source Capital Ltd - Fund a Brand Ltd

P.O.Box 4272

Foster City

94404

310-218-3710

crowdsourcecapital@gmail.com

A permanent solution for the homeless and unemployment problem in the United Kingdom.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 17:31:00 +0000

Crowd Source Capital benefits the homeless and unemployed

Proposal: A permanent solution for the homeless and unemployment problem in the United Kingdom.

Idea: A mandatory (government chooses) or self-made (they choose), weekly £1 deduction from the unemployment benefit, crowd funded from over 2,000,000 unemployed people in the UK is transferred into a REIT (The Unemployed Real Estate Investment Trust), a property fund to buy UK nationwide properties for cash which are then owned in a £1 for 1 share structure by those who put in the money who are in fact the unemployed and the homeless, (those on weekly benefits or donations).

After 52 weeks the REIT would have a gross income of £104,000,000 (after 1 year) and over £1billion after 10 years which is invested in real estate rented by and remodeled by the unemployed and the homeless.

The REIT property management company a separate entity would not take a salary just a gross management fee of 5% to run the REIT.

Properties would have no Mortgage or lien (debt) and we would look for properties that need work or remain unsold for whatever reason which could be heavily discounted upon purchase. We would also look at foreclosures and duplexes and apartment buildings. We would also look at properties with land and gardens that would be liked by the homeless. They could literally camp and live outside their own house on their own land if they chose to in good weather, that they have legally bought and remodeled. We would prefer they lived inside their house, but there will be times when a transition is necessary.

After year one we would create an App for like-minded people (because they care) who might wish to invest in the REIT to compound the peoples' financial power of purchasing a REIT owned by the unemployed and homeless. But ownership in REIT 1 would always be the unemployed and homeless who paid in because then they will have a residual income and a deed to the property through their shares.

We are a pimp of hope and we push dreams with the help of the politicians like the ex-president Barack Obama who has become even more popular since leaving office and we would ask him to be the spokesperson for Crowd Source Capital for the UK homeless and unemployed.

Being Homeless can be caused by a multitude of problems and this includes mental illness but this could change with real estate ownership for those less fortunate than the majority but who as a crowd have huge financial purchasing power.

Thank you for reading this. I understand this is radical and at the beginning, it is a tiny pioneering solution but over time and with the crowd it becomes a compounded self-fulfilling prophecy.

We believe that teaching a man or women to fish (metaphor) in the long term beats charity which needs a residual donation. With this model, the REIT would rise to be a major player in the real estate market changing the situation of the homeless and unemployed permanently over time.

Thank you for reading this.

Our first purchase for £350,000 plus vat (20%) and it's freehold would be the Norman Arms in Saint Leonards on Sea on the corner of Norman and Western Road in East Sussex, United Kingdom currently for sale to the highest bidder...

see link the Norman Arms

Crowd funding for dollars

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 May 2016 12:27:00 +0000

By James de Rin - in London

We live in exciting times. With every day passing the end game beckons to disrupt the banking system, sometime in 2026, the payment system, our credit cards, banking, virtual currency, the block chain, or let's just call it "money" like the Pink Floyd song, as we know it and ultimately funding new projects with equity or loans for start ups, small businesses or in simple english "ideas".

Who will win the financial arms race? The cyber punk futurists, the freaked out bankers, the block chain specialists, the venture capitalists or some one with a really high IQ and a Mensa membership who makes a simple mass adoption that's accepted by regulation (tricky) and the people that's you and me who actually adopt that app, mechanism, or start up. Snapchat is catching up with Facebook, and you tube needs a complete reboot Netflix, Amazon prime, Hulu anyone?

Crowd Sourcing and Crowd Funding is littered with expendables like Quirky. It never pays to be first into the space. It's the mop ups that seem to get it right. They learn from other's expensive mistakes and refine, study and usually get lucky. Most success stories were not by design but by being in the right place at the right time. You don't even need an office anymore http://www.wework.com which seems to be replacing Regus with community space!

Facebook is now massive $117 - $120 a share but when it floated at $38 a share and dropped to $16 a share who knew. Only with mass adoption on the cellphone did Facebook get it right. Google is still getting there with mobile. My point is with Facebook you have your market already built. The next step with the block chain that trendy mechanism to reinvent secure contracts away from dark web bit coin exchanges and with R3 and now Chain in New York rebooting banking by digitising dollars into the block chain for the banking brands! We used to say dialing for dollars now it's digitising for dollars!

It's coming except it won't be instant, it will be stealth, it will crawl up on us by 2026 and by then it will have been accepted. Digitised banking for millennials on the block chain.

Our idea is "Block chain equity crowd funding on Facebook, snapchat, what's app, you tube". I love the Bloomberg terminal ad mantra: any platform, anywhere! There is nothing to stop Facebook doing it themselves but they seem more focused on advertising dollars, virtual reality and competing with You tube videos when the biggest prize would be a Facebook bank, crowd funding dollars for projects. It's a Kickstarter meets Facebook play with equity on the block chain.

Fundabrand.com coming soon...

Crowd Fund Capital on the block chain...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 15:44:00 +0000

By James de Rin - in London

Back in 2009 we bought the domain name crowdsourcecapital.com and more recently crowdfundcapital.com Now in 2016 the next big boom already upon us in Internet start ups is fin tech or financial tech the total disruption of the traditional banking model. Even the banks have realised that they must adapt or die by 2026 with fin tech as part of their business model or be replaced by twenty year olds, millennials whose start ups disrupt as did Amazon, Facebook and Google. Who will be the Google of fin tech? Do you really want to put your money in a bank at 1 %interest and have your bank lend it to their customer at 3,6, or 22%. now the banking system is considering negative interest rates.

Complete madness.

In the UK, banks are closing their branches faster than a tesla! Why, because most people use Apple Pay, online banking or credit cards. The days of going into a branch and knowing anyone are over. Only Metro Bank in the UK seems to think that a branch is the future. Judging by their stock it isn't helping! First Direct an online only bank owned by HSBC blows most competitors away! HSBC has pushed Defcon 4 on their branch closings a shift followed by Lloyds bank. In one town in East Sussex the only bank left is Nationwide, Lloyds gone, HSBC gone...

Now when I say fin tech it comes in many forms. Lending can be peer to peer...the big focus is on the block chain and Bitcoin and Ethereum so that transactions can be coded. As I understand it each transaction can have its own DNA code for security. This is why Microsoft has adopted Ethereum a reboot of Bitcoin but on whole another level.

So where does this leave fin tech and crowd funding? Like a Clint Eastwood movie, it's the Wild West all over again. Anything goes because the disruption is disrupting conventional banking. Code, the block chain and an app, well even apps are old school now...how many can you download on your iphone and actually use. 50% of apps are bought and abandoned by the customer. Impulse buy meets reality check! It's time for bots. Crowdbots?

So it's time to build a fin tech platform on the block chain of ethereum but with Netflix for projects. A crowd funded ecosystem on the block chain using video as hardly anyone reads anymore...fund a brand anyone?

YouTube Enters into Crowdfunding

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 14:42:00 +0000

written by By Zack Miller

Crowdfunding Expert

Updated December 08, 2015.

Appeared in crowdfunding.about.com on December 08, 2015

Quietly, Google has been making its way into crowdfunding in a big way (What is crowdfunding?).

It hasn't done so by launching large, splashy rewards-based crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter or peer to peer lending networks like Lending Club.

Instead, Google is placing its bets on existing platforms with money from its investment arm, Google Ventures. And rightly so, Google is positioned atop a list of the top investors in crowdfunding and it's done so with investments in equity crowdfunding platforms Angel List and CircleUp and peer to peer lender, Lending Club.

Lending Club's CEO, Renaud Laplanche said about Google's investment in his firm:

We believe our relationship with Google will be very helpful in better serving our customers. We couldn’t be more excited to have them on board.

When you look at Google's investment activity in the crowdfunding space, it's clear that the firm believes in the potential of crowdfunding. But some news that the search/technology firm dropped today may point to a more hands on approach it will be taking to crowd funding in the future.

Google Announces That YouTube Will Launch Crowdfunding

With a video and blog post, Google announced some new changes it would be making to the creation tools for publishers of videos on its video network, YouTube.

One of those changes would be that YouTube would be joining the crowdfunding excitement.

Here's why: Google monetizes the billions of videos watched on YouTube by showing advertisements to viewers. In turn, YouTube shares those revenues with the producers of such videos. But here's the thing: a lot of those videos are made to promote products and services sold off of YouTube.

Once someone clicks off a video, YouTube loses the opportunity to make more money off a user.

So, this new announcement that Google would begin providing a mechanism for viewers to directly pay the makers of videos on YouTube changes the rules of the game.

YouTube Product Manager Rehan Ratnatungha explained:

“The problem is, a lot of this funding happens off YouTube. So I’ve been thinking about we can do this directly on YouTube, allowing fans to fund the creators that they really love.”

How will YouTube inject crowdfunding into videos?

Sources say that many content creators on YouTube have voiced their frustration that advertising revenues have been dropping over time. That's actually lead to a few of the larger publishers to leave YouTube in search of better revenue-producing platforms.

YouTube -- and parent, Google -- recognize the potential size of the crowdfunding market (expected to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the future), so it's working hard to collaborate with the Kickstarters and Indiegogos of crowdfunding.

Unfortunately, Google's announcement didn't give more details on what crowdfunding would look like or how crowdfunding would work on YouTube, but that hasn't stopped analysts, journalists, and bloggers from speculating.

GigaOM:

YouTube has been cooperating with crowdfunding sites for some time; Kickstarter and Indiegogo were some of the first external websites that video producers could link to via video annotations. The video service didn’t offer any additional details on what its own crowdfunding features will look like, but given that history, it’s possible that YouTube will try to complement Kickstarter rather than directly compete with it.

NBC News:

If people can put a few bucks in the virtual tip jar without visiting another website, that could be more convenient.

C rowdfund Insider:

The iconic Veronica Mars stands as an industry touchpoint for the power of crowdfunding to finance films that may have not found studio backing. While there is no indication YouTube is getting into the film production industry for tentpole movies – a successful funding structure would certainly aid in setting a strategic tack to head in that direction.

Whether it's financing new forms of movies or just providing a mechanism to donate money to video creators, it's clear that Google is intent on investment more money -- and resources -- into ensuring that it's a dominant force in the crowdfunding industry.

To learn more click here

Insane but perfectly feasible crowd sourcing and crowd funding predictions for 2016.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 14:29:00 +0000

written by James de Rin in London

Apple will buy Netflix …and here’s why? Apple has been stalled out the gate with their content play, Apple TV package, they abandoned it last month because they could not get the rights to the content they wanted they have left it too late! Tim Cook’ strategy will be to go shopping with the $200 billion he has in cash. Apple will buy Netflix for $50 billion. The algorithm Netflix has created and the deal it has in play and the market mover advantage will kick start Apple TV to form Apple Content. The 60,000,000 Netflix subscribers watch content and tell Netflix by what they click on and for how long and what they watch and when will actually crowd source the data Netflix needs to keep going. To put a crowd sourcing and crowd funding spin on it Apple could fund new content from the 60,000,000 subscribers at $10.00 a month on top of the Netflix existing membership payment, as a standalone investment vehicle to create a Netflix crowd funded studio actually modeled on Disney’s Silver Screen Partners Fund from the 1980s to fund new content that the public have shares in. Imagine not only be a member of Netflix but actually an investor in their content pipeline and get a credit and a return on your investment if they knock it out of the park. Imagine $600,000,000 crowd funded each month for Netflix to create new content for Apple TV. Netflix Studio, Netflix independent, Netflix documentary, Netflix theatre and on and on…In 2016 Netflix will spend $3 billion on new content, imagine Apple owning Netflix letting it run as a standalone but with a crowd funding fund that replenishes every month and is not on the balance sheet of Netflix as debt. Talk about Crowd Source Capital!

Disney will buy Netflix… and here’s why? Because of Bob Iger’ existing relationship with Netflix and his penchant for acquiring content rights so far Pixar, Marvel and now George Lucas it makes total sense to acquire the pipeline for content distribution that leads the world. With ESPN falling off a cliff with traditional cable unbundling like expanding foam why not transition ESPN and content to Netflix make it the pipe of content distribution as traditional dies off. Just imagine all the Star Wars content available one movie at a time on Netflix how many would join just to sign up for each film and remain hooked…As Disney is in the content business why not have the public crowd fund a second tier of content for you and give them risk with reward how exciting would that be…

The Salvation Army charity buys Kickstarter or Indiegogo! Now that Kickstarter and Indigogo are proven business models for rewards crowd funding how about the Salvation Army buying www.Kickstarter.com or www.Indigogo.com with what you say? On January 20^th 2004 the Salvation Army received $1.5 billion from Joan Kroc’ wife of McDonald’s founder… she died on October 12^th 2003. The $1.5 billion went to building community centers all 35 of them. So the money has been spent, but not leveraged as of yet. However with this model they would have a perpetual income every year. Add www.justgiving.com and they would be a power house in the crowd funding and charity space.

Google Ventures decides to invest further in the crowd sourcing and crowd funding space in crowd and on line funding platforms. They have already invested $17,000,000 on top of $42,000,000 in On Deck Capital which raised $200,000,000 in an IPO in 2014 and before that Google invested $125,000,000 in www.Lendingclub.com which floated the same year. So Google Ventures makes a play for www.fundingcircle.com and www.crowdcube.com I am expecting a call from Google Ventures to my office here at www.crowdsourcecapital.com. Just kidding...Google Ventures targets on line platforms specializing in the provision of debt. (see You Tube Enters into Crowd funding by Zack Miller. YouTube will announce in 2016 a new platform partnership between YouTube and crowd funding. It already owns stakes in Angel List and Circle Up.

That’s all my predictions folks…see you in 2016

What to do with Twitter?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 16:00:00 +0000

Written by James de Rin in London

First off it would be callous not to mention last night's madness across the channel. With the attrocities in Paris still fresh on my mind Twitter has shown that the collective village has a soul and people do care. We all support France and especially Paris the most romatic city in the world that just got turded by some brainwashed young french born men. Barely in their twenties they carried out their orders from within France but guided by the head of a serpent who only knows chaos, death and destruction. Whatever your politics surely this is the tipping point of passive aggressive! But then democracy has many jealous ideological enemies. The french are a tough bunch the foreign legion comes to mind and even though Mr Pudding runs the place he is extremely decisive if not economically educated. So closing the borders, locking down Paris with the military was smart.

Back to the blog...
OK so the stock market took a dump on Friday, high street retail is dead just go look at the malls! Duh! long live the internet, and twitter is back below its IPO price at $25.17 While tech has been and still is the actual engine of the USA economy. Silicon Valley is like a Dyson (vacuum cleaner) for brains and funding. I can't help but think that the smartest people in tech are missing a trick, well missing an out of the box helicopter view. Namely crowd sourcing or crowd funding. Social media is the glue of the internet and its management either monetise it well or badly.

Over at Facebook when the stock was $16.00 a share, today its at $107. I remember everyone saying its over, everyone is transitioning to their baby blanket (cell phone, mobile phone) goodbye Facebook. No more desk top Facebook...So what does Zuckerberg do he moves with the crowd and makes Facebook mobile friendly and then adds companies who have built in ecosystems that keep you in the Facebook walled garden. I digress "What to do with Twitter" now that Ballmer has bought a billion dollars worth and that guy in Saudi Arabia Alwaleed In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud revealed that he now owns 5.17 percent of Twitter’s stock, or 34,948,975 shares.

Twitter is saved. Not exactly...its stock went up and now its back down.

Dorsey needs a new vision like Facebook sauce or "Twitter Crowd Funding." Let's imagine everyone on twitter individuals and corporates want to raise money for their idea or project or start up. A few words, a hollywood log line or an elevator pitch and you are off and running. Not allowed to do that you say...well you are now SEC just approved final rules of the Jobs act...here is what it says...exactly

On October 30, 2015, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted final rules under Title III of the JOBS Act to enable U.S. companies to offer and sell securities through crowdfunding (Regulation Crowdfunding). This alert provides an overview of the SEC crowdfunding rules slated to become effective in early May 2016, with certain related forms, such as Form Funding Portal (which will be used to register as a funding portal), becoming effective at the end of January 2016.

So Mr Dorsey after firing a percentge of all your staff (well that made the firm less bloated so good move for the stock but not a vision for the future) and instead of following Twitter's mission statement whatever that is and always following behind Facebook go where no social media company has gone before. Go Crowd funding before Facebook does. If you really have balls go see Mr Timberlake and give Myspace a purpose as well "Music Crowd Funding" or Twitter will end up in the trash with netscape, myspace etc...

Aggregate your users into a funding aggregation tool using the tweet as the pitch. Buy Kickstarter and Indigogo and hook up with apple pay.

Just imagine twitter "we fund any idea, company, start up, anywhere on the planet, anytime, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Elevator Pitch

Funding Target

and reboot Yahoo as a marketing tool for Twitter Crowd Funding...Mr Dorsey leverage the tools you have, the twitter ecosphere, (307 million active users x $10.00 investment is a lot of dollars its $3.07 billion per month from the crowd funding movement, the Jobs Act and the rewards proven system of Kickstarter and Indiegogo! Create the twitter Silicon Valley Ecosphere

Do what Hollywood does er I mean Netflix and Amazon Prime and Hulu do, make a pilot and then ask the crowd if they like it by watching it. Put in a button with three clicks to funding.

1. Pitch

2. Synopsis/Team/ Video

3. Funding Target - Thermometer Achieved or not (funding portal)

Wannabe be!

*Twitter will become a marketing tool for sports with Ballmer's help, but it needs to become a future crowd funding bank as well!

Will Disney buy Netflix and why?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 21:32:00 +0000

Written by James de Rin

In my last article on Netflix I hypothesised that Apple might buy Netflix for its ecosystem and I ended my article by saying that Amazon might merge Netflix with Amazon prime and use the superior platform and ease of use. What was I thinking. In the last few days Disney's stock has tanked to $108 a share from $122 a share (now it's coming back at $111 a share )because of the new trend (sorry speeding up trend) of unbundling here in the U.S. More and more consumers just consume content through their iphone or android or iPad or laptop. It is no longer bizarre to see people watching content on a train in a Los Angeles Starbucks or at home on their device or on the London tube. The television is becoming extinct. Being forced to watch 175 channels of which you only watch 4 and with nothing worth watching on the television the broadcasters have missed the trend by living in the past like a dinosaur. Now. My point is ESPN was the juggernaut that kept Disney cash pouring in, just like HBO for Warner Bros but what we are witnessing is concentric rings of interest. where a human watches what they want to watch when they want to watch it. The disrupters get this and offer the consumer content on the consumers terms. Well Disney has recently struck more and more deals with Netflix to distribute content and Netflix gets older content from Disney which is not competing with dinosaur content distributors. But just imagine if Disney I mean Bob Iger the genius behind the acquisitions of Star Wars, Marvel etc took one last gamble and created an apple type ecosystem for his content. If Disney bought Netflix and it wouldn't be cheap $52 billion this week he could grow his pipeline of content into future platforms using Netflix. I had a theory that the telcos who own the delivery system would end up owning content as people want content not necessarily the branded pipelines. But Disney creates content and content is king but only if you own the distribution of it the platform. More and more platforms will appear all doing the same things with content but Netflix has left the gate first and has momentum. It may not have the latest content but that is only a matter of time and with Disney's help it would compound. So what in god's name does this have to do with crowd funding or crowd sourcing. Well Disney has its brands which turn out tent pole movies which cost $100 million and upwards what it doesn't have is a kickstarter for content. WIth a Netflix purchase it has analytics which tell you what you like, where you live, how much you watch it, who your favourite actor is, your blood type just kidding in other words it is research and development to crowd fund content with a platform and a new business. Kickstarter has done a great job of funding new film makers and existing celebrity filmmakers what Disney and Netflix can do is make stuff that concentric rings of interest want to watch other than the big tent pole movies. If the studios and Hollywood agents could back every horse they would own it all but what we are now seeing is that You Tube is becoming the place where you post your ideas, your video, your story and see if there is an audience once you have an audience Hollywood offers you a deal you can't refuse but what Netflix does is monetise it in 100 countries with an audience of 65 million people who then binge on it like it's an all you can eat content buffet.

This is just my opinion and every one has one...but let's see if Disney does buy Netflix because if they don't

Netflix might just buy Disney one day!

Crowdfunding expands to global and emerging markets

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 May 2015 14:47:00 +0000

The potential investment gains to be made in

emerging economies can be huge. A new crowd funding

company Emerging Crowd is focusing on such frontier

markets to offer UK investors a chance to do so.

Aim high: harness the power of crowdfunding to invest in the property market Photo: (c) Don Bayley

By Monty Munford

7:00AM BST 24 May 2015

2 Comments

The nature of money and capital is changing

as quickly as everything else. Cryptocurrencies,

business funding, banking and coinage are blurring

into one big accelerated charge across the Rubicon.

Financial phenomena such as M-Pesa’s mobile

banking platform in Kenya where 42 per cent of

GNP is conducted, Bitcoin’s digital peer-to-peer

currency and even ‘old’ platforms such as PayPal

mean money is now something else. The currencies

we now deal in can range from ‘favour economies’ to

microlending and even using a (Apple) watch to

buy products.

Not only is it confusing, it is also opening new

opportunities for businesses to trade in. One such

well-known platform is crowdfunding where companies

raise money from many small investors, instead of

relying on the, frankly, unreliable largesse and

blockbuster model of venture capitalists and banks.

There have been notable crowdfunding successes

such as the oft-mentioned Pebble Watch, but umpteen

fails such as those investing in games development.

However, crowdfunding seems to have hit critical

mass and looks as if it’s here to stay.

^{Above: the Pebble Watch was a crowdfunding success}

Like anything new, crowdsourcing is beginning to

fracture into different shapes from its initial rewards-

based model. Equity crowdfunding where companies

offer equity stakes in exchange for investment, instead

of prizes, have been highly successful in the UK,

spearheaded by companies such as Seedrs and

Crowdcube.

Two months ago, there was further fragmentation

when Eureeca (terrible name, interesting business),

self-described as the ‘first global equity crowd funding

platform’ received regulatory approval from the UK’s

Financial Conduct Authority. This means UK-based

SMEs looking to enter the Dubai market can access

to capital and expertise from local investors.

Founded in Dubai by former investment bankers,

Eureeca’s FCA approval offers new geographical

opportunities for crowdfunding; a market the company

expects to reach $90 billion by 2025.

“UK- and Europe-based SMEs with ambitions of

entering the Gulf can now access capital and expertise

from investors in the region. In the same vein, businesses

in the Middle East seeking to expand into the UK will be

able to secure capital through investors there,” said

Eureeca

Managing Director, Sam Quawasmi.

Another interesting crowdfunding company in this space

takes Eureeca’s example further. Launched last month,

Emerging Crowd is a UK-based investment crowd funding

platform that offers users equity (and debt) investments

in unlisted emerging and frontier market companies.

The platform enables growth-stage businesses to raise

up to a maximum of £4 million in a 12-month period.

One of the earliest companies to crowdfund on its platform

is Cape Town-based company Bozza, a digital distribution

platform where artists can connect with fans who want

locally relevant content via their mobile device and desktop.

^{Above: Bozza used Eureeca to crowdfund on its platform}

“We chose Emerging Crowd because they are the

first platform that focuses on companies that operate

out of emerging frontier markets. They are an exciting

platform that links ambitious, well-run companies

seeking finance with international investors pursuing

the potential higher returns from frontier and

emerging markets,” said Emma Kaye, CEO Bozza Media.

Crowdfunding, however, in whatever form it comes

now or is likely to transmute in, is not a panacea to

growing and funding a company. As previously

mentioned, for every Pebble Watch funded, there

will be many who fail to raise their targeted money

and will be forever associated with such a fail.

Those who do fail and go back to raising traditional

forms of funding are unlikely to be welcomed back

with big bags of money from VCs and banks if their

crowdfunding campaign was unsuccessful. In essence,

their businesses will be lucky to survive.

But like with new forms of money, new forms of

business funding will mean there will be winners and

losers, both for the investors and the ones chancing

their arm. What else would you expect if the

crowdfunding market does reach $90 billion over

the next decade?

Who should buy Netflix and why?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 23 May 2015 21:18:00 +0000

By James de Rin

Here’s a clue. If you haven’t read “the everything store” [the book on the story of Amazon] by brad stone then you should. On page 376 it says “Jeff Bezos was tracking a firm [Netflix] he viewed as a potentially dangerous new rival.” And this was in 2008. Boy was he right. Fast forward to May 2015 and Netflix stock is oscillating between $613 and $635 a share, insane making it a $50 billion dollar company. But then Amazon’s stock price has gone nuclear as well at $428 a share up to $200 a share since Christmas 2014 making Amazon a $200 billion dollar company.

So you know the story Netflix began with CD’s and DVD’s in a red envelope that you paid a monthly fee and watched numerous films within that price package. With the advent of faster broadband technology Netflix introduced streaming and the rest is history. Currently with 50,000,000 members and growing it is expected to go to $720and eventually $1000 a share. So who do I think should buy Netflix? Well the answer is Amazon but Bezos should lead the next chapter in streaming content by adding crowd funding.

1. Discs by mail.

2. Streaming content $9.99 a month.

3. Invest in content as per Indigogo and Kickstarter and create more content for the platform.

Amazon Prime is a great platform and deal for content viewing and free with the Prime membership but let’s face it the Netflix platform blows it away. Content on Amazon is good sometimes better than Netflix but not original content, “House of Cards” anyone. Netflix allows you to automatically view each episode…

So Bezos should buy Netflix by buying up the stock and merge Amazon Prime movies with Netflix and keep the Netflix business model say $9.99 a month globally. Times that by 150,000,000 people that’s the eventual market and you get $1.5 billion month revenue!!!

One library just think of the negotiating savings, think of the Netflix platform, think of the 200 million customer reach, think of the one thing Amazon has not created which is the most important part of a store? The banking or the bank. They have Amazon payments which used to take the money for Kickstarter as the payment system for rewards. Now movies, or TV or just content has to be continuously created by Netflix, Amazon Studios, Hulu, HBO for the public’s content appetite and the biggest cost of that is buying content and creating it which drives membership and retention. What if the public indirectly funded their own content by investing in things they like? Algorithm cash vestor! Oh and Amazon owns the server network that Netflix uses to stream its content. AWS…which is a $2 billion division of Amazon.

So to repeat

1. Discs by mail.

2. Streaming content $9.99 a month.

3. Invest in content as per Indigogo and Kickstarter and create more content for the platform.

4. Netflix financed by membership and crowd funding.

5. Crowd Source Capital the crowd funding bank for content…

6. Then Amazon should buy Kickstarter and Indigogo!

7. Then you have a self-fulfilling prophecy of constant content creation and content to stream on top of commissions and acquisitions.

8. Then the everything store really could be called the everything store when it starts selling money Wonga with a soul and disrupts the banks for the customer!

9. Consolidation of content streaming players coming soon!

Or should Apple buy it and invest in crowd funding? I’m still betting on Jeff Bezos.

Award Winners To Teach At New Film Academy Presented By MOFILM And Chevrolet

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 21:54:00 +0000

Kongdej Jaturanrasame, Pimpaka Towira, Sheila Timothy and Mouly Surya join the Academy for Southeast Asian Filmmakers Teaching Staff

26 March 2015, London: MOFILM today announced that the award winning filmmakers Kongdej Jaturanrasamee, Pimpaka Towira, Sheila Timothy and Mouly Surya have joined the academic team who will deliver the inaugural sessions of the Academy of Southeast Asian Filmmakers (ASAF) as presented by Chevrolet and MOFILM. The fee-free academy is a three-day course, created and delivered by experts from the local and international filmmaking industry. It will cover several aspects of filmmaker theory and practice, with a focus on developing the storytelling skills. The Academy will take place in Jakarta on the 11th to 13th of May, and in Bangkok on the 15th, 16th and 18th of May 2015. Filmmakers who are citizens of Southeast Asia and are over the age of 18 can apply at www.MOFILM.com/ASAF, the deadline is the 7th April 2015. All entrants will also have the opportunity to enter a competition to produce short format film content for Chevrolet.

Jeffrey Merrihue, CEO & Founder of MOFILM, said "The aim of the Academy is to help young filmmakers, who are just starting out, to develop skills to build the career they want. To be able to hear from such successful local filmmakers will be invaluable."

Kongdej Jaturanrasame

Mark Harland, Director of Marketing at General Motors International, said "Partnering with MOFILM gives us the best of both worlds - we're able to open new possibilities for up-and-coming filmmakers by giving them a platform to share their craft, and it provides us with tremendous content for our brand to utilize."

Writer and Director Mouly Surya is regarded as one of Indonesia's most promising film talents with her work receiving recognition from both Indonesian and International Film Festivals, including Sundance and Rotterdam International Film Festival. Sheila Timothy is a well-known Indonesian producer, who started her career in advertising and the music industry before moving to feature films. Her work has been recognised by several film festivals and her third feature Tabula Rasa won four awards at the Indonesian Film Festival 2014.

Pimpaka Towira is a Thai independent filmmaker who writes, directs and produces all of her films. Pimpaka is a pioneer for female film directors in Thailand and as a result, she won the Silpathorn Award in 2009, distributed by the Ministry of Culture in Thailand. Best known for his romantic comedies, Kongdej Jaturanrasamee received a Silpathorn award in 2014; a national award in honour for living Thai contemporary artists who have made notable contributions to Thai fine arts and culture, presented annually by the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, Ministry of Culture of Thailand.

More tutors from the Thai and Indonesian film and TV industries will be announced shortly.

**ENDS**

Note to Editors: Filmmaker Biographies

Kongdej Jaturanrasamee

Kongdej Jaturanrasamee is an award-winning Thai screenwriter and film director. After graduating from the film department at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Kongdej became a film professor at Assumption University.

He began his career in the late 1990s directing music videos, before becoming a feature film director and making his directorial debut with the 2003 comedy Sayew (winning the Asian Trade-Wind honourable mention at the Seattle Film Festival).

He is best known today for popular romantic films, including The Letter (2004), which he penned as a remake of the 1997 Korean film Pyeonji. Kongdej also co-wrote the Tony Jaa action flick Tom-Yum-Goong (2005). Other films he has written and directed are Midnight My Love (winner of won Best Script at the Deauville Asian Film Festival 2005), Handle Me with Care (made with GTH film studio, the largest film studio in Thailand in 2008), P-047 (2011) and his 2013 film Tang Wong(winner of Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay at Supannahong Award 2013).

Pimpaka Towira

Pimpaka Towira is a Thai independent filmmaker who writes, directs and produces all of her films. She is decidedly in the art-house camp of filmmakers. She was educated in Film at the University in Bangkok and went on to work as a film critic and writer for The Nation newspaper in Bangkok after graduating.

She went on to make a number of experimental short films, among which was a short called Mae Nak, which won a Special Jury Prize at the Image Forum Festival in 1998

Pimpaka's feature film debut One Night Husband (2003) brought her international fame. She is the first female Thai filmmaker to be noticed by international viewers and critics alike.

She is also part of the Free Thai Cinema Movement, for whom in 2007 she directed a series of short films, which featured interviews with Thai film directors and artists opposed to censorship of films by the Thai government.

Mouly Surya

Surya is an Indonesian film director whose debut feature Fiksi gained her recognition in her home country when it won the Citra Award at Festival Film Indonesia for Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Music and Best Original Screenplay. It also won her a Best Director award at JIFFEST 2008.

Her second film What They Don't Talk About When They Talk About Love was the first Indonesian film to ever compete in the main competition (World Cinema Dramatic Competition) at Sundance Film Festival 2013. It won the NETPAC award at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam as the Best Asian film. It also won the awards for Best Music in Asia Pacific Film Festival 2013 and Best New Director in Las Palmas Film Festival in Spain. In its home country, the film won three out of four awards given by Akademi Film Indonesia in 2014 for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Film.

Sheila Timothy

Sheila is a well-known Indonesian producer who spent many years of her career in advertising and the music industry before moving to feature films. In 2008, she and her husband (Luk Wanandi) established their new film company Lifelike Pictures.

She gained recognition after producing the film Pintu Terlarang (The Forbidden Door) for Joko Anwar, which went on to win Best Film at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PIFAN) in 2009.

She has since gone onto produce her second feature Modus Anomali, which premiered at the SXSW Festival and won the Bucheon Award at the 4th Network of Asian Fantastic Films NAFF in 2011. Her third feature Tabula Rasa, released in September 2014, gaining critical acclaim and winning four awards at the Indonesian Film Festival 2014.

About Chevrolet

Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world's largest car brands, doing business in more than 115 countries and selling around 4.8 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

About MOFILM

MOFILM is the leading content creation community for aspiring filmmakers and photographers, with members all over the world. MOFILM works with global brands to showcase talent and create innovative new ideas.

MOFILM's creative are valued by brands. Our competitions give our partners a chance to tap a huge reservoir of international talent, as well as developing a wealth of content to be distributed online and via mobile devices. MOFILM contests also help brands engage with creative talent around the globe.

MOFILM provides production grants, along with mentoring and advice throughout the entire creative process of their competitions, from script to final edit, to ensure that the filmmakers have the best opportunity for their work to be used by that brand.

For more information about MOFILM, visit www.mofilm.com

Feral a new UK/USA start up company is currently crowd sourcing its corporate brand design on 99 Designs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 21:17:00 +0000

Click here to look at all the designs in the competition

Facebook because of its scale has the platform just waiting for crowd funding $

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 20:56:00 +0000

Editorial

By James de Rin - Friday March 27th 2015

The brands of Crowd Sourcing and Crowd Funding are patiently building market share as they disrupt the financial, equity, and rewards' crowd funding sectors. As Funding Circle, Crowd Cube, Kickststarter and Indiegogo grow so too their tipping point grows nearer and nearer. A tipping point that companie’s like Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, HSBC, Citi Bank, Chase and Wells Fargo cannot ignore. Facebook because of its scale has the platform just waiting for crowd funding $ and Apple with its new payment system has the ecosystem. So until the behemoths realize what’s coming down the track then Funding Circle and Kick Starter and Indiegogo are ok but once the light bulb goes on at Facebook or Apple that’s when crowd funding will become a global people's bank funding business and peoples projects one $ at a time! Only the other day Facebook announced a walled garden for certain news outlets trying to grab a piece of Drudge's, the Drudge Report's business model.

"The Old Grey Lady of newspapers is reportedly partnering with a brash newcomer in the publishing game — Facebook.

In a scoop about itself this week, The New York Times reported the paper will give up some of its precious website traffic to the social-media giant, a move that some media observers call a power shift in the digital publishing landscape.

Under the proposed deal, Facebook would host content from prominent news outlets such as The Times, National Geographic and Buzz Feed directly inside the Facebook app."

I still prefer Drudge but Facebook has learnt from Microsoft that you do not remain static and sell the same software in a box year after year (remember that) you move, you change, you acquire before you lose market share.

If everything in our capitalistic culture revolves around purpose for money and payment systems and jobs and projects then it is only logical that the end game is that crowd funding will replace the banks or become the bank! This isn't a run on the banks it is a run away from the banks for micro lending and micro equity funding or as today's buzzword Crowd Funding or what I like to call let's Crowd Source Capital.

Funding Circle might soon become a billion-dollar tech firm

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 20:09:00 +0000

23 March 2015 | By Shruti Tripathi Chopra

London’s on a roll with producing

billion-dollar tech companies.

The latest entrant? Peer-to-peer lender Funding
Circle, which lets members of the public and
some organisations make loans to small
businesses.

The London-based tech start-up is set to raise
£50m in the next two months. The new funding,
according to the Sunday Times, will give Funding
Circle a $1bn valuation. However, a spokesperson
from Funding Circle told us that this is all
speculationat the moment. Funding Circle was
founded in 2010 by Samir Desai (CEO),
James Meekings (CMO) and Andrew Mullinger.
The tech start-up boasts high profile investors
including Betfair co-founder Ed Wray and
Carphone Warehouse co-founder
Charles Dunstone.

Here are 5 things you should know about Funding Circle:

1. Funding Circle is the world’s leading
marketplace exclusively focused on small
businesses. More than £550m has been
lent to UK businesses to date.
Over $850m has been lent to 8,000
businesses
globally.

2. Since launching, Funding Circle has raised
$123m in equity capital from investors who
backed Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Betfair.

3. Funding Circle has over 37,000 active
investors registered and over 8,000
businesses have borrowed from
the company.

4. Funding Circle lends £35m to small
businesses every month.

5. The average loan amount is £60,000
and businesses can borrow up to £1m.

Starving artists no more? Meet the Kickstarter for music, arts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 19:31:00 +0000

by Trent Gillies CNBC

Want to support your favorite starving artist? A new
payments website—one born out of frustration—
can help you help them.

"Patreon" Co-founder Jack Conte is half of the
musical group Pomplamoose, who started the site
two years ago. The group had been putting their
musiconline, and getting some payment via a YouTube
channel.

Yet with so much free online content available, many
musicians, writers and other creators are struggling to
get paid for their efforts. Conte wants to alter that
dynamic.

In an interview with CNBC's On The Money, Conte
explains, "I spent three months working on a music
videos, working eighteen-hour days, put it out, got
half-a-million views… and got a check in the mail
for a couple hundred bucks."

Conte added: "I thought, nope, that is not going to
be how this works."

The musician decided to launch his own start-up
with former Stanford roommate Sam Yam. Their
idea was to create a digital fan club, to harness the
power of fans. Thus was Patreon born, as a way for
artists to make money from the songs, art and
content they create.

"Artists get ongoing funding from their fans."
Yam told CNBC.

Guido Mieth | Taxi | Getty Images

Patreon says 250 thousand patrons are donating
small amounts of money to 14 thousand active
creators. According to the website, it is sending
$2 million dollars a month to artists, and the
average payment creators are receiving is
$9 a month.

So why would fans pay for something they're
getting online now for free?

"The idea is patrons are donating out of goodwill,
but in terms of what they get back, its mostly
about intimacy and interaction with artists,"
Yam explained.

Kickstarter is the largest crowdfunding platform.
Since its 2009 launch, Kickstarter has funded
more than 81,000 projects, with 8.3 million people
pledging more than $1.6 billion in funds.

However, Yam explains instead of Kickstarter's
model of providing funding for particular projects,
Patreon is different. The site offers sustainable,
continued funding for artists, he says.

"It's more about supporting artists in an ongoing
way," Yam says. "The artists don't have to go
through building up a whole new project just
for their funding to create a whole new movie,
or anything else."

Patreon itself has received more than
17 million dollars in venture capital funding from
investors including Sam Altman (president of Y
Combinator), Stanford University, Alexis Ohanian
(co-founder of Redditt), David Marcus (former
PayPal President), and Stanford University.

Conte says Patreon is growing because more
content creators are going out to their fans and
telling their story, as he did.

"Guys, I'm making stuff. I know you like it,"
he said. "I know you're watching it or listening
to it or reading it. And I'd like to get paid to
continue." Conte says fans then flock to the
site, and are responding with their financial support.

"It's a natural instinct that humans have," he
said. Music and art lovers spot material that
they love, "is beautiful and is worth our attention
and our focus and we want to support it," Conte
added. "We want more of it."

Trent Gillies | @trentCNBC

4 Hours AgoCNBC.com

London Brewery Seeks Money and Profile in Crowd Funding Craze!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Mar 2015 18:50:00 +0000

by Tom Beardsworth

(Bloomberg) -- Camden Town Brewery could seek the finance it wants to expand from a bank at historically low interest rates. Instead, it’s turning to crowdfunding to raise money and its profile at the same time.

The five-year-old company is seeking as much as 3.5 million pounds ($5.2 million) by inviting its customers and other investors to subscribe as little as 10 pounds -- the price of two pints of Hells lager in its own north London pub -- in return for equity. It plans to build a second brewery and triple its staff to 200, with a target to sell five times as much beer in 2020 as it did last year.

Little more than a buzzword a decade ago, crowdfunding has emerged as a challenger to traditional financing models by using Internet platforms to match those wanting money with the tens of thousands of individuals willing to stump up contributions of varying amounts. For young companies such as Camden Town Brewery, an online campaign not only brings in investment without the need for banks, it increases awareness of their products and services.

“The more we bring in the more security we have. It’s less bank debt,” the brewery’s founder, Jasper Cuppaidge, said in an interview. The campaign brought with it marketing spending the company normally wouldn’t have access to and “made us look a lot bigger than we are,” he said.

Financial Crisis

Equity crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, in which investors get their money back with interest, took off amid the financial crisis as startups and small firms had trouble getting loans from banks. For investors, it offered the prospect of returns at a time when banks and building societies paid next-to-nothing for deposits.

Now firms selling everything from salad dressing to pay-as-you-go electric cars are piling in, using matchmaking sites such as Crowdcube and Funding Circle Ltd.

Equity financing of the type used by Camden Town raised 84 million pounds last year, five times more than in 2012, according to a report produced by Cambridge University and London-based research firm Nesta. Alternative finance as a whole, which also includes peer-to-peer lending, accounted for about 1.7 billion pounds.

That represents a small slice of the small business lending market. Outstanding loans to private non-financial small and medium-sized enterprises totaled 155 billion pounds in January, Bank of England data show. And crowdfunding is more established in the U.S., though investment regulations there mean the market has been limited to high net-worth investors.

Growth Prospects

With bigger companies joining in, few restrictions on who can invest and the possibility that the Bank of England will increase interest rates from record lows this year, crowdfunding in the U.K. could grow fast, experts say. The average cost of new sterling loans to private non-financial firms fell to 2.5 percent in January, according to the BOE.

“Much in the same way as Amazon challenged Barnes & Noble, so will the financial industry find itself reshaped by online platforms,” said Gary Dushnitsky, an associate professor at the London Business School. “A more interesting question is whether the prevailing platforms will be led by new entrants or set up by existing banks. Cooperation rather than competition may be the hallmark of the future.”

For their money, Camden Town investors get freebies too. Subscribers who put in more than 1,000 pounds are invited to twice-yearly parties with free beer and receive a yearly case of lager. It’s a model used by Mexican food chain Chilango, which last year offered “burrito bonds” giving investors complimentary burritos in addition to fixed-rate payments.

Equity for Punks

For firms, crowdfunding doubles up as advertising and makes future networking easier, said Stian Westlake, research director at Nesta. A Scottish beer maker, BrewDog, started the trend in 2013 by raising 4.25 million pounds in an “Equity for Punks” campaign that included parking a tank outside the Bank of England.

It took less than a month for Camden Town to hit its initial 1.5 million-pound target. Since then, it’s continued to accept money, with almost 1,900 investors pitching in nearly 2 million pounds for 2.6 percent of equity, valuing the business at 75 million pounds. The company will have 3 million pounds of long-term debt this year, according to its accounts.

Over half of those investing through equity-based crowdfunding have an annual income of over 50,000 pounds and 21 percent of investors earn more than 100,000 pounds, according to the Cambridge University/Nesta report.

Ad Campaign

The brewery has taken out advertisements paid for by Crowdcube on the London’s underground rail network to entice commuters to invest some of their salary.

The ads compete for attention with those from retail stockbroker Share Plc, which says it has 260,000 customer accounts. “Gentlemen prefer bonds,” its ads say, in a pun on the 1953 Marilyn Monroe movie.

But with the BOE benchmark in its seventh year at 0.5 percent and yields on government and corporate bonds alike around all-time lows, the chance to invest in eye-catching projects may continue to draw people such as Jamie Smith.

Smith, a 34-year-old designer from London, invested 100 pounds in Camden Town “purely as a gesture of loyalty, being local fans of the brewery” since it began in 2010. “We have no expectations of this being an investment that will offer any real return, but I think our 100 pounds is pretty safe.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Beardsworth in London attbeardsworth@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O’Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.netAndrew Atkinson

Hedging unemployment into an asset class.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 14:03:00 +0000

by James de Rin

Dear Frank Underwood,

REF: Crowd funding unemployment into limitless real

estate ownership!

I recently binged on Netflix’s third season of House

of Card’s and was surprised and amazed to learn of

your America Works program. Here in a fictional

Netflix streaming television show produced by the

higher echelon’s of Hollywood was an idea that in

reality people might actually want, namely full

employment and why not. Every one deserves a

job and every one wants a job.

Now that crowd funding and crowd sourcing has

grown up and gone legit perhaps it is time to

revisit a simple concept.

If the unemployed are paid weekly by the government

to live could $1 from each of the unemployed be

transferred into a real estate asset class to buy properties

with no debt at auction, at market value, and from

banks for the sole purpose of being remodeled, fixed up,

painted etc by the unemployed and owned by the

unemployed and then rented to the unemployed.

In other words create an ecosystem out of an

existing ecosystem that fixes properties, employs

the unemployed and creates an asset that they own.

Too far fetched for most politicians, but perhaps if

I could pitch you (Frank Underwood) you could run

with it. Just imagine $9,200,000 every Friday to

buy broken properties and with the upside creating a

fund that the unemployed own and that creates

employment.

Any vested politician running with this idea might attract

9,200,000 voters right off the bat as they get to own a % of a

house from the beginning and going forward get to build a

limitless property portfolio with no debt which compounds with

value with government assistance and government purpose.

It turns state aid into a private asset $1 at a time.

Last time I checked there were 9,200,000 unemployed

x $1.00 every Friday = $9,200,000 per week to spend on

real estate! That’s $478,400,000 a year in the US alone to

spend on real estate properties. In February 2015 the

unemployment rate decreased to 5.50 % but….

“If you add the current number of Americans without a job

(9.2 million) to the number of US citizens not in the labor force

(92.02), you come up with 101.22 million working age Americans

Who do not have work, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor

Statistics (BLS)

Victory Park Capital to finance Funding Circle loans

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 13:07:00 +0000

Funding Circle, the world's leading online

marketplace for small business loans,

today announces that Victory Park Capital,

an asset management firm based in the

US and an active lender to UK and

European companies, will finance up

to $420 million in loans to small

businesses originated through

Funding Circle both in the UK

and US over the next three years.

This new, long-term agreement, which

significantly extends the existing relationship

between Funding Circle and Victory Park Capital,

will allow Funding Circle to provide a much

needed further injection of funding into the small

business sector and reflects the strong growth

of Funding Circle globally over the past twelve

months. Funding Circle has now facilitated more

than $850 million in loans to 8,000 small

businesses globally.

Victory Park Capital has been actively involved

in the marketplace lending sector since 2010 and

has made more than US$2.2 billion of investments

and commitments across a number of financial

technology platforms, multiple geographies

(US, UK and Europe), products

(consumer and business) and structures

(whole loans and senior credit facilities).

The investment combines cutting-edge technology

with market leading financial solutions.

Victory Park Capital was an early institutional

partner to Funding Circle in the US and

this new funding will be invested across all risk

bands, in accordance with Funding Circle's

industry-leading credit criteria.

Gordon Watson, Principal of

Victory Park Capital, commented: "Funding Circle

has experienced tremendous growth over the

past year and we are pleased to expand our

on-going partnership to both sides of the Atlantic.

With this additional lending facility,

Funding Circle will be well-positioned

to continue to disrupt the traditional banking

model through 2015 and beyond."

Samir Desai, CEO and co-founder of

Funding Circle, added: "We're pleased to be

welcoming additional new financing to the

marketplace, which will further support small

businesses. Today's news is a significant step

on our journey to creating the global infrastructure

where any investor, big or small, can lend

to creditworthy small businesses looking to grow."

Sachin Patel, Head of UK Capital Markets

at Funding Circle, said: "Partnering with

Victory Park both in the UK and US is testament

to our proven track record in facilitating loans

with attractive yields and consistent credit

performance. Funding Circle is opening up

an asset class to investors that has previously

only been available to high street banks."

Launched in 2010, Funding Circle is

helping to spark a global revolution in the way

small businesses access finance, disrupting

the traditional model of banking.

Funding Circle's proven model enables

businesses to access finance in a matter of days,

directly from investors who earn high, stable returns.

Through Funding Circle, businesses typically

access the capital they need in seven days

compared to 15-20 weeks with a bank.

Independent research* has found that three

in four businesses would come to Funding Circle

first in future, ahead of a bank.

Crowdcube Co-Founder named as one of Britain’s Most Influential Entrepreneurs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 21:20:00 +0000

Crowdcube Co-Founder named as one of Britain’s Most Influential Entrepreneurs

The co-founder of equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, has been named by Debrett’s as one of Britain’s 500 Most Influential People.

Darren Westlake was named in the list published in The Sunday Times. The Debrett’s 500 2015 List recognises the most influential and inspiring people living and working in Britain.

Westlake was one of 20 entrepreneurs in the study alongside Innocent Drinks Co-founder Richard Reed, Lastminute.com co-founder Brent Hoberman and Supergroup co-founder Julian Dunkerton.

Other influential people in the list include: Sir Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web; Nicola Mendelsohn, head of EMEA operations at Facebook; Sir James Dyson, inventor of the dual cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner and the retired footballer David Beckham.

Since Westlake and co-founder Luke Lang launched Crowdcube in 2011, the platform has raised just under £55 million for 188 businesses across the UK, equivalent to raising £1569 every second over the last four years.

Speaking about the accolade, Westlake said: “This is a real honour. We are proud to have challenged the traditional finance sector and created a vibrant new market for entrepreneurs seeking finance and investors.”

“Britain has led the world in financial services for centuries and it is now the turn of ambitious young and innovative businesses, like Crowdcube, to continue this tradition.”

Click here to learn more

U.K. Banks Pilot Loan Sales to Crowdfund Site investUP

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Feb 2015 11:00:00 +0000

by BAILEY REUTZEL

FEB 12, 2015 6:19pm ET

Crowdfunding has become all the rage, and it's making some banks nervous about losing small business clients. But investUP, a "supermarket of crowdfunding platforms" that launched during Finovate Europe in London this week, thinks banks can benefit from the trend.

InvestUp consolidates crowdfunding sites and businesses looking for investment on one platform, allowing investors a bird's eye view of the market. The UP platform allows investors to search for deals, invest straight from its site and manage their investments. UP is completely free for investors to use.

The London-based company is currently running pilots with two of the top six banks in the U.K., allowing the banks to resell business loans to the crowd, said James Tuckett, managing director at the startup, during an interview at Finovate on February 11.

For example, a bank's business client may come back to ask for another loan but the risk department at the bank says the bank can't lend more to the client. Traditionally banks would lend the money and resell the loan to another bank, but investUP offers banks a quicker and more cost-effective method for selling loans. investUP plans on taking 0.5 to 1% of any loan that's moved onto the platform.

"It's a slower process for banks to sell loans to other lenders...we're allowing the banks to compete with these peer-to-peer sites," Tuckett said.

Currently, investUP is partnered with 13 crowdfunding sites. The company works with Mangopay, a payments API provider for marketplaces and crowdfunding platforms.

And investUP believes in the crowdfunding boom. In 2012, the company crowdfunded itself into existence through CrowdCube for about $231,000. Two years later, investUP participated in the London-based Startupbootcamp accelerator.

Both in the U.K. and in the U.S., the crowdfunding market is expanding dramatically. The market in the U.K. is expected to increase by about $6.78 billion this year, according to research from Nesta, an independent charity in the U.K. that pushes forward innovation.

The benefits of crowdfunding are still being realized, but on top of that there has been some negative media attention, with investors losing money on runaway businesses that don't deliver the product promised.

Because of this, many governments are looking at ways to regulate the industry.

The Financial Conduct Authority in the U.K. has been pretty open-minded in terms of regulating crowdfunding, said Tuckett. The FCA "has a whole team specializing in this," he said.

investUP has been working with regulators for more than a year to figure out the regulatory requirements that should fall on peer-to-peer platforms like crowdfunding sites. The company applied for a license in October.

The U.K. government has offered an April 2016 grace period for crowdfunding sites to comply with the regulatory requirements for debt, equity, bonds and the safeguarding and administration of assets, said Tuckett.

Crowdfunder Fundrise marketing 3 WTC bonds

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 21:53:00 +0000

Platform offers users a chance to invest in the building's senior debt

January 27, 2015 09:34AM

Fundrise’s Ben and Daniel Miller, a rendering of 3 World Trade Center and Larry Silverstein

Crowdfunding platform Fundrise is marketing some of the tax-free bonds used to finance Silverstein Properties’ 3 World Trade Center. The website, which counts top Silverstein executives among its key investors, is offering up the chance to invest in a $2 million share of the 80-story skyscraper’s most senior debt, according to Capital New York. Fundrise is not directly re-selling the debt, according to the website, but is offering a chance to invest in a trust that holds the debt. Silverstein sold the tax-free Liberty Bonds in October for roughly $1 billion of the building’s financing at an initial annual return of 5 percent. Fundrise raised $31 million in May, as TRD reported. Silverstein’s chief executive Martin Burger and president Tal Kerret were among the investors. [Capital NY] – Claire Moses

Kickstarter Drops Amazon Payments For Stripe

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 16:28:00 +0000

by Sarah Perez - Techcrunch

Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter announced

today that it’s partnering with payments service

Stripe, which will now collect and process all

payments for projects hosted on Kickstarter’s site.

Since its founding, Kickstarter used Amazon

Payments for this, but claims it had to make

the switch because late last year, Amazon

decided to discontinue the payments product

that Kickstarter was previously using. That

decision led Kickstarter to analyze the

possibilities, and ultimately it chose the

well-liked and growing company Stripe,

most recently valued at $3.5 billion

following its recent $70 million funding round.

Stripe processes payments for some of the

biggest tech companies, including Facebook

and Twitter, as well as others like Lyft,

Shopify, TaskRabbit, Instacart, Rackspace,

Postmates, Handybook, Salesforce, OpenTable,

Bigcommerce, Reddit, Squarespace, WuFoo,

and many others. It has become popular for

its ease of use and setup, simple and

transparent pricing, and because it offers

companies complete control over the

checkout experience.

“Stripe will help Kickstarter’s users reach

a broader audience and see higher

conversion rates from backers anywhere

in the world – especially those coming

from mobile devices,” the company says.

For project creators, Kickstarter says this change means

they’ll no longer have to set up an Amazon Payments

business account anymore, but instead will enter

their bank account details on the Account tab of

their Kickstarter project’s draft. The change will

also speed up the time it takes to go live on

Kickstarter – before, the Amazon Payments

setup process took a few days. With Stripe,

the process takes just a couple of minutes.

For backers of a project, checkout will be

easier as they’ll no longer be redirected or

have to log into a separate service. The

checkout flow will also now take place

entirely on Kickstarter.com itself.

Kickstarter says its fees are not increasing

as a result of the move – it will apply a

5% fee to the total amount of funds

raised and Stripe will apply credit card

processing fees (about 3%-5%).

The move to Stripe will be completed

by next week.

Kickstarter has processed $1.2 billion

in pledges via Amazon Payments, which

it was using even a year before launching

to the public. The payments service was

selected at the time for being of the only

ones that allowed Kickstarter backers to

pledge money, but only be charged

when projects reached their funding goals.

Recently,

the company gave a look at its business over the past year,

noting that 3.3 million backers in 2014 pledged $529

million, resulting in 22,000 funded projects.

The Need For Liquidity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 03 Jan 2015 00:18:00 +0000

The rise in popularity for private company investing must come with the ability to exit

Written by Stuart Lucas co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Asset Match

H ere's a conundrum. What do all those

private businesses that have raised

funds through the new wave of

alternative finance do with their

shareholders? Once the companies have got

the cash there is a temptation to treat them

like mushrooms – feed them rubbish and keep

them in the dark.

Crowd-funders are becoming more

demanding, albeit led by more sophisticated

investors. Like their quoted counterparts they

expect access to investor information and regular

updates. Crucially investors want to know how and

when they can expect an exit.

Providing liquidity in unquoted companies

has always been a problem and the regulator,

the Financial Conduct Authority, also raised

concerns on this issue in its consultation paper on

crowdfunding toward the end of 2013. To attract investors,

newly funded businesses often make vague promises of an IPO

(initial public offering) or trade sale in three to five years. Until

then shareholders just have to sit tight unless the management

are willing to buy back the shares. Even then how do you

determine price? Shares in private companies are typically

bought and sold at a value that both parties can mutually agree

on, rather than at a market derived one.

I once found myself in this position and was locked in

a successful private business for over 12 years; with no

transparent mechanism to value my shares I was compelled to

hold on.

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE

There are over 2,500 sizeable private companies with turnover

above £15 million in the UK that have at least 10 shareholders

and many more start-ups with over 50 shareholders. A back

of an envelope calculation puts an equity value of

around £300 billion of tied-up assets. Only a tiny

fraction of these companies will ever go public,

some may find a buyer, more won’t survive.

Shareholders also need to be aware that the

people behind many of these businesses may

have no real intention of providing an exit any

time soon. After all the greatest advantage of

being private is retaining control and making

decisions without having to ask anyone’s

permission.

Share auction services like Asset Match used

to be perceived as the go-to places for delisted

stocks that couldn’t cut it as a public company.

With some companies paying in excess of the

value of the shares being traded to maintain their

listing, it is no wonder they begin to question their

status as a public company. The private market

is also changing. The growth of a nation of angel investors,

EIS schemes and better access to private business investment

opportunities means that demand for a secondary market to

trade illiquid assets is on the rise.

TASTY STORY

Aberdeen based craft brewery BrewDog is a good example

of a one-in-10 crowd-funded success story. It has completed

three ‘Equity for Punks’ share issues since 2009; the latest in

2013 at £95 per share. An early commitment to shareholders

to provide a liquidity event was recently actioned. Buyers

and sellers were corralled in a five-hour auction where 220

investors took part. Participants were able to see the range of

bids and offers which spanned from £25 to £300 and adjust

their orders accordingly. In the end, 118 individuals traded

successfully. The smallest seller sold just one share while the

largest buyer invested over £80,000. At the close, shares were

transacted at £125 per share giving BrewDog a market cap

of just under £150 million. Not bad for a company that was

founded in 2007 and has sourced most of its funds from fans.

Liquidity doesn’t just affect up and coming companies. Any

private business with investors faces the same issue, whether

it is a private equity-backed company, a family business with a

myriad of biologically-related shareholders or companies with

EMI (Enterprise Management Incentive) schemes.

Financial technology firms are offering simpler, more

transparent and cheaper ways to solve long existing problems

including the trading of shares. The bigger exchanges are also

waking up to the fact that many companies would prefer to

stay private if they could, and in the US the NASDAQ Private

Market was launched earlier this year. With so many new

alternative ways to finance companies now on offer it is not

surprising that hubs for unquoted secondary markets are coming

into

their own.

Indiegogo brings its crowdfunding app to Android, beating Kickstarter to the punch

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 22:29:00 +0000

December 11, 2014 7:42 AM
Paul Sawers

Almost five months after Indiegogo introduced its iOS app to the global masses, the crowdfunding company has finally brought the app to Android too.

The app not only lets you search for promising campaigns to fund but also lets you plow your hard-earned cash into them too. You can also save items to your favorites, view by “Trending”, “Ending Soon”, “New”, and “Most Funded.”

Unlike the iPhone app, which was launched in Canada before its global rollout, it seems Indiegogo has taken an international approach to the Android incarnation from the outset. However, there isn’t feature-parity quite yet. You’re not able to track or manage your own crowdfunding campaigns through the Android app.

We’re told that the longer-term vision is to let users develop, launch, and manage a campaign directly from the app, too. Indeed, more “campagn owner-focused” features will be added next year.

Based on our brief tests, the app was just a little buggy. It takes quite a while to load projects each time you launch it. But it is currently sitting at version 0.9, which suggests this may technically be a beta product for now.

Indiegogo is one of the preeminent crowdfunding platforms on the Web, and with the launch on Android, it has beaten its big-name rival, Kickstarter, to the punch.

You can download Indiegogo for Android now.

Jobs Act to simplify capital raising boosts crowd funding

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 18:56:00 +0000

By Financial Times - Tracy Alloway

Nasdaq: going for its own slice of the private market

On a cloudy day in October, dozens of crowdfunding professionals gathered at a hotel in central San Francisco to discuss the up-and-coming sector. More than 150 years after thousands flocked to the US west coast to prospect for precious metals, crowdfunding is presenting another gold rush of sorts.

Buoyed by new US regulation and the advances of modern technology, crowdfunding platforms are developing momentum and potentially providing investors with hefty returns.

“People in this room are going to make a lot of money,” Mark Roderick, a lawyer who specialises in crowdfunding and who sponsored the San Francisco gathering, told the assembled throng.

To their supporters, such platforms represent the democratisation of a financial sphere hitherto reserved for professional investors. To their detractors, they are a lightly regulated minefield rife with the potential for fraud.

The incumbent financial institutions – particularly the big stock exchanges that have dominated equity-raisings – view the rapidly evolving crowdfunding landscape as providing both competition and opportunity.

Kickstarter and Indiegogo, which have used the power of the internet and social networks to create a place where people can donate money to start-ups and other projects, are perhaps the best-known platforms.

In places such as San Francisco, the crowdfunding possibilities are potentially limitless, with myriad loans, debt and land purchases up for grabs.

The effects of the “Jumpstart Our Business Startups” legislation passed by US lawmakers in 2012 are likely to increase the popularity of such crowdfunding portals substantially.

Known as the “Jobs Act”, the new law is meant to simplify the complex web of rules that govern US capital raisings and securities sales and will allow equity and debt raising to take place on crowdfunding portals.

Crucially, the act paves the way for platforms such as Kickstarter to move away from their traditional model of exchanging money for small gifts and allow donators to take equity stakes in the projects they are funding.

Yet large swaths of the act, including the provision that would allow crowdfunding platforms to raise equity, have yet to be implemented by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC appears to be concerned that loosening securities laws could lead to a wave of crowdfunding platforms with the potential to defraud investors.

In the meantime, the pillars of the Jobs Act that have been finalised have so far proved to be an opportunity for large stock exchanges, which are using them to augment their bread-and-butter business of facilitating public listings.

Under the Jobs Act, the number of shareholders a company is allowed to have before being required to register its stock with the SEC has been raised from 500 to 2,000.

The act has also lifted a long-time ban on “general solicitation” of private placements – a rule that limited certain deals to a select group of professional, or “accredited”, investors.

Sensing the winds of change, both Nasdaq OMX and the New York Stock Exchange – the two biggest US exchanges – have created their own private market offerings to take advantage of the changes introduced by the Jobs Act. NYSE has invested in ACE Portal, a platform that connects investors, broker-dealers and private companies, to help capture its own slice of the growing private market. Nasdaq created Nasdaq Private Market, or NPM, earlier this year.

“Companies are definitely staying private longer,” says Jeff Thomas, NPM vice-president of sales. He estimates that during the late 1990s, companies would wait three to four years from founding to listing; now they might remain private for as long as a decade.

As for longer-term disintermediation by crowdfunding platforms once the entirety of the Jobs Act is implemented, most financial industry professionals are hopeful that the emerging industry will complement their existing business rather than disrupt it.

Peter Williams, chief executive of ACE Portal and a former investment banker, says: “Theoretically there is a risk, but there is a lot that incumbent investment banks do – it isn’t just matching investments with investors.” He adds that banks are responsible for performing due diligence, managing regulatory issues and sourcing transactions.

In San Francisco, home of Silicon Valley and its army of venture capitalists, the sense of excitement over crowdfunding possibilities is palpable. Yet there is concern that a nascent industry could be tainted by a few bad apples.

“I’m going to ask you, as you go out and crowdfund, just to bear in mind these risks,” Mr Roderick said at the gathering. “We can all help make it work and, conversely, if there are bad actors, we can really ruin it.”

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