World’s First Crowdfunded Hotel: Hard Rock Hotel in Palm Springs Raises $1.5M

World’s First Crowdfunded Hotel, Hard Rock Hotel, Palm Springs Raises $1.5M

By Robert Hoskins

Palm Springs, CA – Realty Mogul, along with Kittridge Hotels & Resorts announced that stakes in the Hard Rock Hotel in Palm Springs are officially sold out!  This news marks crowdfunding history as the Hard Rock Hotel in Palm Springs will go down as the first operating hotel in the United States to successfully use crowdfunding.

Hard Rock Cafe in Palm Springs is First Equity Crowdfunded Hotel in the United States

In total, Realty Mogul raised over $1.5 million for the project, spread across 85 investors around the nation.  In addition to the potential financial benefits of being an equity owner in the Hard Rock Hotel Palm Springs, individual investors in the hotel are receiving VIP benefits including free use of the hotel owner poolside cabana, 25% discounts off the best available room rates, free room upgrades and much more.

“Hard Rock Hotel Palm Springs is excited to be the first crowdfunded hotel in the nation and we’re honored to have completed this transaction with Realty Mogul, the leader in real estate crowdfunding,” said Andy Carpiac of Kittridge Hotels & Resorts, LLC.  “Our staff is thrilled we have the privilege of servicing our new owners at the hotel and treating them all to an exceptional level of VIP service.  For all of our new investors, Hard Rock Hotel Owners Cards are in the mail.”

“This is a historic time for both Realty Mogul and Hard Rock as hospitality makes so much sense coupled with crowdfunding, ” saidJilliene Helman, CEO of Realty Mogul.  Not only can hotel owners raise capital for their projects, but they can drive bottom line results through a network of investors that are staying at the property, touting the property and encouraging their friends and relatives to frequent the property.”

For Realty Mogul, the Hard Rock Hotel Palm Springs marks just the beginning as the company will be actively crowdfunding more hotel transactions in the near future.

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RCS Capital Announces Initiative to Establish Leading Crowdfunding Investment Platform

Acquires Assets of Trupoly, White-Label Investor Relationship Management Portal and Adds Key Executives to Crowdfunding Initiative

By Robert Hoskins

New York, NY – RCS Capital Corporation (NYSE: RCAP), announced that it is establishing a crowdfunding investment platform which it will brand under the name, “We R Crowdfunding.”

In connection with this initiative, RCAP acquired substantially all of the assets of New York based Trupoly, Inc., a white-label investor relationship management portal, which will be integrated into RCAP’s new crowdfunding investment platform.  RCAP also announced the hiring of Trupoly Founder and President, Ryan Smith, as well as other key Trupoly executives.

RCAP expects “We R Crowdfunding” to launch in September 2014 as part of RCAP’s integrated financial services platform under the direction of Michael Weil, RCAP’s President. “We R Crowdfunding” will deliver high-quality investment offerings by utilizing RCAP’s existing broker-dealer infrastructure, which includes investment banking, due diligence, compliance and research, as well as technology developed by Trupoly. “We expect ‘We R Crowdfunding’ to provide investors direct access to public and private offerings, including Regulation A and Regulation D offerings, mutual funds and closed-end fund offerings, in a variety of industries and sectors,” said Mr. Weil.

Mr. Weil continued, “‘We R Crowdfunding’ looks to the future of securities sales by adding an important element to our full-service retail financial services firm. The crowdfunding investment platform will permit investors, whether working with financial advisors or exploring investment opportunities on their own, to access, investigate and participate in a wide range of offerings from a vast pool of asset classes. We are making a small capital investment at this time to gain access to a significant potential market that we expect to develop over the next several quarters.”

“We are pleased to be joining the RCAP team and look forward to creating the market leader in direct-to-consumer investment offerings,” said Ryan Smith, Trupoly’s Founder and President.  Also joining RCAP are Charles Crnoevich, Trupoly’s Head of Sales, and Melanie Eitel, Trupoly’s Client Relationship Manager.

Crowdfund investing was established by Title II of the federal JOBS Act in 2012, which directed the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) to relax rules prohibiting the general solicitation of investments.  Crowdfund investing relies on general solicitation, often via the Internet, to inform and attract capital to specific investment opportunities.  A 2013 study by the World Bank predicts that crowdfund investing could grow to become a $300 billion annual market in the U.S. over the next ten years.

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