ieCrowd and FundingPost Bring Professional Experience to Crowdfunding Industry including SharkTank, Investor Forums and Crowdfunding Workshops at Mega Event

By Robert Hoskins

One of the nation’s leading networks of angel and venture capitalists has partnered with ieCrowd and brings more than 150 professional organizations together to co-host the ieCrowd’s inaugural Innovation Economy Expo (ieExpo), a national mega-event designed to provide innovators and entrepreneurs direct access to a large network of investors equipped to fund innovative businesses and innovations.

ieCrowd’s Inaugural Event Connects Shark Tank, Investor Forums, and Crowdfunding Workshops at Mega Event

“Success stories come when entrepreneurs are introduced to investors who can finance their ideas and put them into action,” said Joe Rubin, director at FundingPost. “Innovation Economy Expo will provide all the tools necessary for this kind of success,” said Rubin.

FundingPost investors will be on hand at the ieExpo event on May 9, 2013, at the Ontario Convention Center in Southern California, to lead a “shark tank” business pitch session in which qualified investors and attendees can participate. FundingPost will also be hosting a workshop on crowdfunding, one of the hottest topics in the investment and venture arenas today. Attendees will have the opportunity to speak with FundingPost investors directly and learn from experts who have successfully navigated the early stages of capital formation.

“ieCrowd is honored to have FundingPost investors and resources at the Innovation Economy Expo. This event is bringing together, for the first time, all of the critical players needed to forge new pathways to success for startups and high-growth ventures,” said Aaron Knox, President of ieCrowd’s division that is building a collaboration platform for innovative high-growth businesses and startups. “FundingPost is a real leader in the venture world, and its work is highlighting the fact that old ways of raising money are just not sufficient today. We’re glad to have them as part of our collaborative platform and we’re thankful they’re bringing such a power-packed agenda to the ieExpo,” said Knox.

ieExpo is the kick-off event for ieCrowd’s movement to create a global community of business leaders, entrepreneurs, start-ups, investment firms, and service providers working together to build successful, high-growth ventures.

Having organized over 220 conferences throughout the United States, FundingPost is one of the nation’s leading networks of angel investor and venture capital events. For more than eleven years, they have been connecting investors with entrepreneurs. With 11,000 CEOs and 750 Venture Capital Funds attending events in 22 cities nationwide and a deal-exchange website with more than 7,800 VC & Angel Investor members & over 150,000 companies, FundingPost a has been responsible for millions and millions of dollars in venture capital raised!

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Seed&Spark Partners with Film Independent and Big Vision Empty Wallet for Crowdfunding Platform Membership Rewards Program

By Robert Hoskins

Seed&Spark, the world’s first crowdfunding and digital distribution platform made just for independent films, announced a partnership with Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that produces the Film Independent Spirit Awards, Film Independent at LACMA film series and the Los Angeles Film Festival, and Big Vision Empty Wallet (BVEW), a curated membership community of artists and innovators.

Seed&Spark Partners with Film Independent and Big Vision Empty Wallet for Membership Rewards Program

As part of the partnership, Seed&Spark will offer discounts on crowd-funding campaigns and streaming distribution on the Seed&Spark site to Film Independent and BVEW members. In addition, the Seed&Spark team will provide individual consultations on how to develop audience-building campaigns to their community members. In return, Film Independent and BVEW will allow Seed&Spark users to redeem their Sparks for membership discounts. Sparks are rewards points that Seed&Spark users can obtain for following, supporting and sharing Seed&Spark Studio crowdfunding campaigns and Seed&Spark Cinema movies.

Josh Welsh, Co-President at Film Independent, commented on the collaboration: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with the folks at Seed&Spark. It’s not just a crowdfunding platform – it’s a very creative, smart set of tools for indie filmmakers to get their films made and get their films seen, and the focus is on building community rather than just raising cash. It’s very much in line with our mission and approach at Film Independent. Also, we’re excited to spread the word about our Filmmaker Pro membership to everyone on Seed&Spark. Whether you’re setting out to make your film or about to share it with the world, this is another tool you’ll want to use.”

BVEW’S Co-Founder & CEO Dani Faith Leonard stated: “BVEW is about creating avenues for our members to spark collaborations and showcase their talents, so this partnership with Seed&Spark is very natural.”

“I’m excited to partner with an innovative company like Seed&Spark. Big Vision Empty Wallet members are going to jump on the opportunity to crowdfund, build an audience, and monetize their projects all in one place,” added Alex Cirillo, Co-Founder and Director of Development at BVEW.

The partnerships are part of Seed&Spark’s plan to create and expand its new ecosystem for the independent film community.

“We’re excited to offer Film Independent and Big Vision Empty Wallet members further support, and we are honored to offer Seed&Spark users access to these two visionary film membership organizations that represent the best of what indie film has to offer: community support for creative endeavors in film,” praised Emily Best, Founder and CEO of Seed&Spark the new partnership.

Zomblogalypse Turns to Indiegogo Crowdfunding to Finance Feature Length Film Pre-Production Costs

By Robert Hoskins

Launched as a piece of zero-budget, webcam-shot fun in 2008, the series is set in the months after a worldwide zombie apocalypse, applying a healthy dose of wry British humour to the adventures of three incompetent survivors more interested in video blogging than survival techniques.

Blogging and Brains and Beans: How 3 idiots survived a Zombie Apocalypse.

Over four years it picked up hundreds of thousands of views online and a dedicated fan base including genre legends like effects guru Tom Savini, Walking Dead comics artists Charlie Adlard, SFX Magazine and zombie film directors Marc Price (Colin) and Dominic Brunt (Before Dawn).

Original creators Hannah Bungard, Tony Hipwell and Miles Watts, fresh from micro budget features Crimefighters and Whoops! that were highlighted by reviewers at Empire, Time Out and Sight & Sound, have now teamed up with producer Steve Piper at British indie mainstay Coffee Films to reboot the series in a feature length format.

“It’s been a great few years and we feel very lucky to have been able to keep progressing making films which edge the budgets and production values up every time, but it’s difficult making the jump from micro-budget tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands an adaptation needed,” comments Watts.

Enter Coffee Films, who were awarded by the European film industry as one of the most exciting emerging fiction talents in the early 2000s before embarking on seven years of critically acclaimed documentary filmmaking, most recently the half-million-dollar Killing Joke documentary The Death and Resurrection Show out this year

“I got to know Miles through a mutual friend and liked a lot of the early experimental comedy shorts he was making,” explains Piper, “when Zomblogalypse came out it was obviously a perfect evolution, a coming together of creative kindred spirits to create a very funny and entertaining world.”

The four filmmakers began developing a feature length screenplay almost a year ago, investing in development time to avoid the back-to-back-episodes feel many series adaptations fall into.

Promising to keep everything fans of the much loved web series delivered, scaled up to a true long-form storyline, the concept has already picked up interest from distributors and turned to crowd-funding to bridge the gap from screenplay to production.

“People tend to think that once you have a script financing just lands in your lap, and that can be true for the big names,” explains Piper, “but for most filmmakers you need a whole package of budget calculations, actors, key technicians and concept artwork to get to the next stage. Crowd funding has emerged as a really great way to get through that process if you don’t have twenty or thirty grand sitting around.”

Bungard continues, “It’s exciting, and a little bit humbling, that people are trusting you to make something that they’ll want to buy and be part of nearly two years in advance. So many people have supported Zomblog over the last five years, whether it’s our friends getting turned into zombies or people on the other side of the world sharing the YouTube videos; we feel very lucky they’ve stuck by us and are supporting us again making a movie version.”

The Zomblogalypse crowd funding campaign runs through April looking to raise £10,000 to meet pre-production costs, and has already pulled 15% of that within a few days of launch. Check it out yourself to reserve a DVD or fulfill a dream to be a screen zombie at http://igg.me/at/zomblogalypse/x/1907888.