In the UK I used http://www.seedrs.com/ http://www.seedrs.com/ to raise GBP 50,000 (in about 15 hours) for my startup http://microco.sm/ http://microco.sm/ One

In the UK I used http://www.seedrs.com/ http://www.seedrs.com/ to raise GBP 50,000 (in about 15 hours) for my startup http://microco.sm/ http://microco.sm/ One of the big reasons that I chose to use Seedrs, beyond being FSA approved, was that they become a single shareholder that I deal with. That is how they are in the terms and how I issued the shares. They hold all of the investor details (some 60 individuals who are already users of another site I run - my users are my investors) and have structured it so that the investors are buying the equity through Seedrs and Seedrs hold a record of that amount in their name. Effectively, Seedrs are a single proxy, but I never have to care about having more than 1 shareholder from a legal perspective (I do care, I speak to my investors, but that's a human angle rather than legal/accounting). I spoke to a few VCs first who voiced concern about the number of investors being an issue. But it really depends on scale... it is an issue if you are seeking a small round in the future and have hundreds of investors. Because to resolve everything legally costs a lot of time and money. But if the round is large, then it's less of an issue anyway as mountains can be moved for large rounds (it's not ideal, but it can be done). Seedrs is appealing because this approach doesn't preclude choices in the future. I don't know if there is a North American equivalent to what Seedrs have done, to have a single shareholder structure in a friendly format, but it's the way to go if you choose to issue equity for funding.