Equity Crowdfunding

Take these 8 steps to become an all-star startup investor

Take these 8 steps to become an all-star startup investor

Oct 28, 2014 | , ,

Show of hands: Who here doesn’t want to invest in the next Facebook or Google? Didn’t think so. The people who invest in startups have supplanted hedge fund managers as the investment rock stars of our age. What makes startup investing so thrilling is that unlike the passive investing common in the stock market (see our Ultimate Stock Market Investor’s Guide to Investing in Startups), angel investors have the opportunity to provide ongoing value with their experience… and Rolodexes. Whether you’re just kicking off your career as a venture capitalist or starting out in angel investing after making your money in other businesses, investing in startups can be a very lucrative activity. In fact, the data show that well-positioned angel portfolios can return 2.5X over a 4-year period. Returns like these easily trounce stock market returns (and historical returns of most other asset classes). However, investing in startups can be tricky. For example, it’s very likely that some of the startups you invest in will end up folding (less than 50% of startups never reach their 5th birthday). What are...

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This Week In Crowdfunding: How individual investors can invest in top real estate deals

This Week In Crowdfunding: How individual investors can invest in top real estate deals

Oct 5, 2014 | , ,

This Week in Crowdfunding is a newly launched podcast series hosted by OurCrowd’s Zack Miller and David Stark, where they cover the best in Crowdfunding with a frank — and educational — discussion about the issues surrounding Crowdfunding. Every week, they interview successful entrepreneurs, deconstruct campaigns, and hear from the smartest people around on this transformative, massive financing trend. Sign up to listen to the podcast on iTunes * Sticher * SoundCloud!  ——————————————— One of the most exciting manifestations of crowdfunding can be found right now in the real estate sector. Investment properties, which were once owned wholly by large real estate firms, are now finding crowdfunding investor interest. And vice versa — individuals, who once struggled to get access to ‘insider’ deals — can now invest in real estate via platforms like Realty Mogul. On this week’s TWiC, hosts Zack Miller and David Stark hosted Realty Mogul’s CEO and founder, Jilliene Helman, to talk about how her firm got off the ground and is now working with both top-flight real estate development projects and attracting investor interest. Watson on Crowdfunding tackles the complicated — but really important — issue of accreditation...

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GE Ventures makes first investment via equity crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd

GE Ventures makes first investment via equity crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd

Oct 2, 2014 | , , , ,

We’re proud to announce that MedAware, an OurCrowd portfolio company, has closed its investment of $1 million from GE Ventures and OurCrowd investors. This financing round marks the first investment the venture capital arm of GE, GE Ventures, has made as part of the strategic co-investment partnership OurCrowd signed with the firm back in November 2013. We believe we have reached a real milestone and transformative moment in the world of high-tech finance. This investment underscores the fact that the startup investment playing field is being levelled — OurCrowd investors get access to the same deals multi-billion dollar corporations are seeing, at the same terms. We are looking forward to driving innovation forward with GE Ventures, whose unequalled expertise and experience in a broad range of technologies and businesses add real value to our portfolio companies and to our investor community. “We are excited about the potential for MedAware to solve the huge problem of prescription error via their impressive big data technology,” said Jon Medved, founder and CEO of OurCrowd. “The fact that our partner, General Electric, has joined together with us in...

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What we’re investing in: Current investment opportunities on OurCrowd (Sep.-Oct. 2014)

What we’re investing in: Current investment opportunities on OurCrowd (Sep.-Oct. 2014)

Sep 30, 2014 | , ,

Over the course of the past two years, OurCrowd along with our community of 5,000 investors have invested $65 million in our 50 portfolio companies. This unprecedented access to early stage investments has made startups an investable asset that is now being included in investor portfolios, just like stocks and bonds. In order to give you a little preview of all the excitement happening on the OurCrowd platform, we’ve decided to publish a monthly digest of our currently funding companies. (To become an OurCrowd member, join us free of charge.) Without further ado, here are the most recent funding OurCrowd companies: Clipfort – Securing firearms with biometric authentication Clipfort developed a patented gun magazine that requires the owner’s unique fingerprint to unlock and fire the weapon. Global gun violence has been on a steady rise over the past few years and is responsible for 85 deaths on average per day in the United States alone. Nearly 18 thousand of these victims are children and teenagers who had unwarranted access to guns. To solve this crisis, current solutions require gun owners...

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This Week In Crowdfunding: How Neil Young raised millions via crowdfunding (and how you can, too)

This Week In Crowdfunding: How Neil Young raised millions via crowdfunding (and how you can, too)

Sep 14, 2014 | , ,

This Week in Crowdfunding is a newly launched podcast series hosted by OurCrowd’s Zack Miller and David Stark, where they cover the best in Crowdfunding with a frank — and educational — discussion about the issues surrounding Crowdfunding. Every week, they interview successful entrepreneurs, deconstruct campaigns, and hear from the smartest people around on this transformative, massive financing trend. Sign up to listen to the podcast on iTunes * Sticher * SoundCloud!  ——————————————— Neil Young may be a great rock and roller but he’s an even better crowdfunder. Young ran a rewards crowdfunding campaign that raised millions of dollars for his new music player, Pono Music. Young didn’t stop there — he went on to raise an equity crowdfunding campaign that was even more successful. What’s Mr Cinnamon Girl’s secret sauce? On this week’s TWiC, hosts Zack Miller and David Stark invited Rose Spinelli, of TheCrowdfundamentals fame and crowdfunding coach and teacher, on to the show to deconstruct Neil Young’s approach, what he did right/wrong, and what we can learn from his success. In a first on TWiC, Rose offers a challenge to you listeners: if you’re willing to take the plunge and launch a...

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