Crowd investing is about selling equity of a company (usually a start up) to a large number of investors, who will invest each a minimal amount. Crowd funding or crowd sourcing may also refer to the same concept in some contexts.
You need money for your start-up. Don't you? So get 1000 mini-angels willing to invest 100 USD each (in exchange of equity) and you will have 100.000 USD.
In the last months there have been a number of web initiatives to make this happen on the web:
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The Spanish company Partizipa, about which we have already talked here in Globthink is going to launch officially on October 1st but they are already organizing talks and already have two start-ups: a real state business in Eastern Europe and a Solar Energy Business.
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The Cambrian House is a page with a horrible aspect and a wonderful content, where business ideas for web 2.0 are discussed. There are currently more than 6000 ideas. One of the hot topics on this page is called Angelic Crowd, which has the same scope as Partizipa.
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My football Club is not exactly start-up funding but crowd funding to buy a football team. Their goal is to get 50.000 members and raise £1.375 in total.
Not that easy, eh? The main problems are, of course, these two:
- How to give trust?
- Is it really legal on sell equity on the web? This is the great handicap. If you want to know it get a layer and pay him at 10.000 USD to tell you how to make it "legal"
- Partizipa explain here their legal background according to Spanish legislation (only Spanish)
Here you have a great podcast by Jason Drohn about crowd investing. I really encourage you to listen.
Crowd Investing in Startups [15:15m]: Play in Popup | Download
