Last week, Our Crowd published a list of the 100 Most Influential Thought Leaders in the world. Most of the listed persons are from the US, even though there are many crowdfunding activities all around the world. Nevertheless, the list is probably a good summary of the driving forces in this new financial sector. In fact, the list displays top level politicians, journalists, business people and investors who have contributed to the crowdfunding regulation and business activities since the birth of industry.
"The cheapest energy is the energy you don’t use in the first place" Sheryl Crow Half the energy produced globally is wasted. Measures to address this situation such as making our buildings, lighting, transportation systems and industries more efficient, have long been regarded as the ‘low-hanging fruits’ in delivering a clean energy economy. There is a strong business rational for companies, as well as households, for investing in energy efficiency. In the past 5 years the crowdfunding industry has undergone remarkable growth – estimated to be around 1,000% – while, at the same time, it has provided around $10 billion in funding to startups and small businesses. The crowdfunding industry’s exceptional growth is not likely to slow down this year either, since, according to early forecasts, the market is expected to grow by an additional 92%. Crowd Valley and North Capital Private Securities Corporation to Provide Full Marketplace Services1/20/2014
PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 20, 2014 – 9 am PST San Francisco, California Crowd Valley announced today a new cooperation with North Capital Private Securities Corporation (NCPS) to provide a full suite of services to online private securities marketplaces in the United States. An Appealing Alternative for Both Borrowers and Lenders P2P lending is probably the crowdfunding sector that is growing the fastest. One of the main reason is that the situation, at least in the US, seems to be favorable given that unemployment is low, people are consolidating debt and improving their personal financial balance sheets, while investors are hungry for yields and cash flow every month. Last month, I was invited to be part of a panel hosted by the Chartered Financial Analyst UK Society and co-organized with CFA UK Private Equity Special Interest Group. The event focused on securities crowdfunding and its evolution in the UK and in the USA, both from a legal and a business perspective. I was joined by several well-known founding members of the UK Crowdfunding Association. Crowdfunding can be defined as “an open call, essentially through the Internet, for the provision of financial resources either in form of donation or in exchange for some form of reward and/or voting rights in order to support initiatives for specific purposes”. Lambert and Schwienbacher (2010) The sentence above is the first academic definition of crowdfunding ever formulated. As some might have noticed it does not include neither a definition of crowd nor one of initiative. A Rapid Growth In a Small Niche 2013 has been a great year for crowdfunding: several new actors entered the market, introducing this new financing method in many different sectors; an increasing number of governments started to take into account the new phenomenon and, last but not least, early rumors say that the overall market’s value has doubled (now $5 billion) compared to the the year before. |
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