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As Angel Investing Booms, So Does the AngelList
- tectonic 16y agoIs there a place for micro-angel financing that I could afford? I want to invest in startups but don't have much (low tens of thousands) to invest.
- us 16y agoYou probably don't qualify. Entrepreneurs should only accept money from an accredited investor. If all you have is low tens of thousands, very high chance you're not accredited. Meaning no one should be taking money from you.
- gojomo 16y agoThe 'accredited investor' rules make it hard to accept traditional equity investments from small net-worth investors. My understanding is that ventures can take a small number of close-family/friends/founding-employee investments from non-accredited investors, but the added costs and risks of setting this up limit its use when there are other options. 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: http://www.profounder.com http://www.profounder.com 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.
- BerislavLopac 16y agoIs Profounder actually working? Any experiences?
- knowledgesale 16y agoAnother similar project is http://www.Prosper.com http://www.Prosper.com (recommended by user crasshopper)
- BerislavLopac 16y agoYou may always invest in places that don't have the "accredited investor" limitations...
- iamelgringo 16y agoIf you have a net worth of over $1M, you qualify to be an angel as per the SEC. Or, if you've made over $200k in the last 2 consecutive years.
- iamelgringo 16y agoA few months ago, I sat down to talk with Naval because of problems that I was seeing with a lot of garage stage startups that were showing up at Hackers and Founders. We talked for a few minutes about how I thought that early stage funding was the definition of an inefficient market. 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.
- DLang 16y agoHi all! 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: http://blog.profounder.com http://blog.profounder.com Also, if you have any more specific questions, I'm happy to answer them!