With seed capital for startups getting difficult to locate by the day,many Entrepreneurs are considering crowdfunding platforms to boost funding for their startups. What is Crowdfunding? It describes the collective effort of an individual who network and pool their resources, usually via the Internet, to guide efforts initiated by others or organizations. Crowd funding can be used in support of a wide variety of activities, including disaster relief, citizen journalism, support of artists by fans, political campaigns, startup company funding, movie or free software development, and scientific research.
Fred Wilson, who is the founder of the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures (which has dedicated to Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, and Zynga), predicts that once the crowdfunding scenario gets up and running, the equity crowdfunding market will reach $300 billion and is going to be largely driven by families and individuals investing a tiny percentage of their assets via crowdfunding. As a spot of comparison, a study from Crowdsourcing.org reports that about $1.5 billion grew up from 452 crowdfunding platforms in 2011.
Listed below are a list of the finest crowdfunding platforms to look to if you’re a startup entrepreneur. Kickstarter: Kickstarter has become the oldest and the strongest crowdfunding platform. With over 74k Projects launched on it’s website, and 383M $ raised through the internet site for projects, Kickstarter has successful rate of 44%. It will also help fund sets from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects which can be brought alive through the direct support of others.
WeFunder: Wefunder is a crowd investing platform for startups. They help seed investors purchase stock for less than $100 in the most promising new businesses across the country. They also help founders raise funds from their most passionate users who provide product feedback, marketing evangelism, and business connections. The organization was founded in January 2010 by an MIT Sloan School of Management. Today it boasts of and endless choice of investments, as written on the website: 9,287 funders pledge to invest $25,989,550 in startups
Indigogo: Indiegogo is among the world’s largest and earliest crowdfunding websites. They’ve helped to boost an incredible number of dollars for over 30,000 campaigns, across 194 countries. Danae, Eric and Slava each tried to boost money for something these were passionate about, however they came out short. They’d great ideas, the passion to work hard, and good networks, yet use of funding through traditional channels proved limited. The trio was determined to find a solution to the problem. Indiegogo came to be; the crowdfunding solution that empowers ideas and enables visitors to donate funds easily.
CrowdFunder: Situated in Los Angeles, crowdfunder is a social network for entrepreneurs and investors for connecting, crowdfund and grow. The organization puts tools, connections and advice in the hands of business owners and investors at all stages in living cycle of a business. Startups and small businesses can raise funds through equity, debt and contribution-based instruments Scout Roles. Crowdfunder can also be holding some contests in cities across the US where local businesses compete, and get to be able to win funding upto US $500,000. This amazing site however mainly concentrates on the US market.
RocketHub: RocketHub is a crowdfunding platform for creative professionals. You can find project topics tagged with various tagwords from beautiful to weird with this site. Rockethub is gaining plenty of popularity recently as a result of it’s continuous media exposure. SeedInvest: Concentrating on American startups, this amazing site was started by a group of MBA professionals from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, SeedInvest seamlessly brings together entrepreneurs and investors via an equity-based crowdfunding platform in ways that’s never been done before. SeedInvest empowers entrepreneurs with a platform to pitch to an incredible number of investors through the US to be able to raise seed capital
Quirky: Quirky is a Crowdfunding Website for Inventors. According to the website, it has created 241 products, has 188 retail partners and has a residential district of over 283,000 people. For centuries, becoming an “inventor” is a hard gig to crack. Complexities associated with financing, engineering, distribution, and legalities have stood in the way of brilliant people executing on the great ideas. Since launching in 2009, Quirky has rapidly changed the way the world thinks about product development
Startsomegood: Startsomegood is a Crowdfunding Website for Social Entrepreneurs. Start Some Good is a new crowdfunding website for social initiatives to boost funds by way of a community of supporters. You may also see a project from India with this website. Fundable: Founded by serial entrepreneur Wil Schroter, Fundable investors are able to purchase small company for equity. The web site is managing a rewards-based funding platform. Believers Fund: This amazing site is for mobile apps. This innovative crowdFunding platform has partnered with companies like Microsoft Bizspark, and has oflate, become the talk of the crowdfunding niche.