If you're not familiar with covestor I can see the confusion (in addition I'm never quite good enough at communicating my ideas). The idea is to pool resources

If you're not familiar with covestor I can see the confusion (in addition I'm never quite good enough at communicating my ideas). The idea is to pool resources from a large body, and to have several existing, experienced and effective venture firms do the actual investing. The results of the venture firms are public and trackable, and the crowd can vote up or down, or comment on the firms while tracking all the startups that are invested in. I realize that the legal and practical hurdles exist, but I'd be willing to pool 5-10k and invest in a solid VC with a few hundred thousand other folks. Right now all I can do is look to mutual funds (blech!) or stocks (long term not a bad way to go). I believe there's some measurable boost to having a few hundred thousand folks pulling for your startup.