As Angel Investing Booms, So Does the AngelList
gigaom.com
gigaom.com
He stopped me, mid sentence, turned his laptop around and showed me what they were building on Angel List. I was floored.
It's exactly what the article talks about: a marketplace for startups to sell equity. This is revolutionary, and because of it, there are going to be thousands of startups in the next few years that will have access to capital that never would have gotten funded otherwise.
Silicon Valley is going to be a very interesting town in the next couple of years.
Yet, there are attempts to hack-around the traditional overhead. Though I know very little about it, I'm intrigued by 'ProFounder', a funding mechanism that seems to use revenue-shares rather than equity to get around some of the regulatory barriers that otherwise prevent crowdfunding by small investors. See:
The founding team with kiva.org alumni (and recognizable advisors and investors) suggest this isn't just some dreamy, naive, or fly-by-night undertaking.
My name is David Lang, I'm the Community Manager at ProFounder. I wanted to clarify a few things about our platform and also provide some resources for those who are interested in learning more.
ProFounder is a crowdfunding platform for entrepreneurs that provides an easy-to-use interface to raise money from friends, family and people that you know. In the words of the SEC, the investors must have a "prior, substantial relationship" to the entrepreneur. We're not getting around any SEC rules by using revenue share. There are SEC compliance requirements for each state. We've found that - for the entrepreneurs that use our platform - the flexibility provided by the rev share model is key.
There have been a number of successful raises on the platform, between $10k - $60k. Check out the blog to read more about the case studies:
Also, if you have any more specific questions, I'm happy to answer them!