Crowdinvesting is a relative recent phenomenon which is growing in many different countries around the world. Several people have heard about equity crowdfunding or peer to peer lending only in the last couple of years. Nevertheless, as young as it may seems, crowdinvesting, especially in the form of P2P lending, has been out in the market for while: some pioneering companies have been operating since the early 2000s, while GrowVC itself - i.e. Crowd Valley’s parent company- has been active in the online investment space since 2009. In the past few days crowdinvesting has reached a new milestone with the IPO filing of one of the most established peer-to-peer lending platform in the US.
Despite the fact that there are heaps of articles being published, suggesting that a crowd investing sector or geography is dominating the rests. While appealing as a thought, the market is still nascent and any domination, may simply suggest that growth is uneven cross the various dimensions. However, there are observations that can be made in how the market is evolving, at various stages across the world. Crowdfunding has thus far been traditionally associated with technology, real-estate, start-ups, and P2P, but in recent months the mining industry has been attempting to revive from the lack of support and funding through crowdfunding. The industry is adapting itself in order to gain the support of investors; once adapted, crowdfunding will allow for the mining industry to be ‘out of this world’. Climate change and global warming are two topics media, policymakers and scientists often talk about. Some see them as an hypothetical future situation, others instead consider them as a present issue. No matter the different stakeholders’ views, the UN, in its last report on climate change, insisted on the necessity to move from fossil fuels towards low-carbon alternatives. In particular, a commonly cited statistic says that there should be an investment of $ 1 trillion by 2030, in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Crowdfunding is quickly changing the way we are investing, but unfortunately, the online payment processing industry has been rather slow to update, causing roadblocks and mistrust for investors as well as for companies seeking financing. PayPal is paving the way to embracing crowdfunding as they adjust company policies. A vast branch of the academic research focuses on gender differences in entrepreneurial initiatives and access to finance. Women have been identified as a large untapped pool of entrepreneurial talent. In fact, worldwide, the number of female entrepreneurs is considerably lower than men. Just by looking at the UK, for example, the number of women-owned businesses is only 15%, while 35% is co-owned by men and women. Doing the math, the remaining 50% is owned by men. “Driven by technology on the supply side and the financial crisis on the demand side, an investment revolution has begun.” Andrew Haldane, Executive Director, Bank of England Direct financing, such as equity crowdfunding and P2P lending, as well as capital markets act both as an information bridge and a conduit of financial flows between a large number of investees/borrowers and a large number of investors/lenders who receive a return for their investment. But the similarities already stop there. The design and characteristics of those two marketplaces are profoundly different. Last week, Crowd Valley published the Crowdfunding Market Report for Q4 2013. One of the main trends that emerged in the last publication is that Private Equity Funds are starting to play a significant role in the crowdfunding ecosystem. In October 2013, Crowd Valley published the first Crowdfunding Market Report, which translated the company's overview on the international crowdfunding market into facts and figures presented at UC Berkeley. Since then, a few important milestones have been achieved by the crowdfunding 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. |
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