OurCrowd and LetsVenture Announce Collaboration on Setting Up New ‘India Investment Fund’ to Begin Investing in Indian and Israeli Entrepreneurs and Startups

OurCrowd will offer curated deals to Indian investor syndicates managed by LetsVenture, as well as showcase Indian startups on OurCrowd’s platform

By Robert Hoskins, Crowdfunding PR

Bengaluru, India – OurCrowd, one of the landing equity crowdfunding in Israel, announced that it has signed a strategic collaboration agreement with LetsVenture, one of India’s largest angel investment syndicates for seed stage and venture capital for startups and growing businesses. As part of this partnership, OurCrowd will offer curated deals to Indian investor syndicates managed by LetsVenture, as well as showcase Indian startups on OurCrowd’s platform, giving selected Indian startups access to accredited investors globally and to business development opportunities.

OurCrowd will offer curated deals to Indian investor syndicates managed by LetsVenture, as well as showcase Indian startups on OurCrowd’s platform

OurCrowd and LetsVenture will be also be collaborating on an ‘India Fund’ to invest in Israeli, Indian and global startups. The investment into this fund would primarily be from family funds and high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in India and OurCrowd’s global network of accredited investors.

Leveraging LetsVenture’s domestic network, OurCrowd will offer Indian corporates access to the Israeli innovation ecosystem.

“Having made startup funding easy, our vision is to make angel investing easy with a focus on portfolio management (startup reporting, portfolio diversification and exits). The partnership with OurCrowd aligns with our vision of offering our investors access to some of the best startups across geographies including Israel, along with giving LetsVenture portfolio companies access to global investors for their next round of funding. In this partnership with one of the largest equity crowdfunding platforms globally, we do believe this is a win-win for both of us,” said Shanti Mohan, Co-Founder & CEO, LetsVenture.

In addition to this, LetsVenture will facilitate ‘Take to Market’ activities for OurCrowd’s portfolio companies to access the Indian market, the activities of which are under development by LetsVenture and are targeted to commence in 2018.

Commenting on the announcement, Jon Medved, OurCrowd CEO, said, “India is a critical growth market for our business with a huge number of very exciting startup investment opportunities in a range of sectors. Israel and India have a great joint heritage sharing many of the same entrepreneurial qualities that are the backbone of our economies. I am excited to be entering into this collaboration with LetsVenture, which I believe will deliver great value to our investors.”

Elias Ghosalkar, Director of Corporate Development at OurCrowd, added, “OurCrowd, with its strong global presence and established industry leadership is well poised to support the Indian startup eco-system and its stakeholders via its strategic collaboration with LetsVenture. This strategic collaboration helps build much needed bridges between the Israeli and Indian startup ecosystems, and opens the doors to tapping into high growth potential synergies. Indian investors, startups and corporates gain access to global expertise, know-how and innovation via the OurCrowd network, which will truly help put the ‘Startup India initiative’ on a fast track and further strengthen the economic linkages between Israel and India.”

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Robert Hoskins
(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR

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Mr. Robert Hoskins is a seasoned marketing veteran with a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses as well as Fortune 500 corporations launch successful marketing communications campaigns to gain market traction for a wide variety of products and services.

On a regular basis, Mr. Hoskins consults with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

Google search “Robert Hoskins Crowdfunding PR” to see why Mr. Hoskins runs one of the industry’s foremost crowdfunding PR, social media and marketing agencies that has amassed a huge social media following and is dedicated to supporting a wide variety of donation, rewards and equity crowdfunding campaigns.

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FitForLaunch.com Launches Rewards-Based Crowdfunding Campaigns for Enomad, Knops, M3 and Snapmaker

To date, the new crowdfunding platform has successfully raised $8.2 million for product development and guarantees delivery for crowdfunded pre-orders

By Robert Hoskins, Crowdfunding PR

Fulton, Maryland – FitForLaunch announced the launch of its new platform for crowdfunding pre-orders. FitForLaunch is unique in that it offers consumers peace of mind with a delivery guarantee, so that they can pre-order the coolest tech without any risks. Should a business fail to deliver within 12 months, FitForLaunch will either refund their purchase or secure an equal or better replacement.

FitForLaunch.com Launches Rewards Crowdfunding Campaigns for Enomad, Knops, M3 and Snapmaker

Every company that joins FitForLaunch undergoes a thorough vetting in 5 key areas: Market feasibility, technical feasibility, production feasibility, financial feasibility and creator feasibility. Each key area is evaluated by a team of subject matter experts; only companies that are viable in all key areas are permitted to join the platform and considered fit for launch.

FitForLaunch debuted in June 2017 with four companies (M3D, Snapmaker, Knops, and Enomad) that have already had successful crowdfunding campaigns representing a total of $8.2 million raised for product development. FitForLaunch expects to add a dozen additional vetted companies every month and aims to help them increase pre-order revenues by addressing new markets.

FitForLaunch companies also benefit by having access to strategic advice in areas of marketing, manufacturing, employment, and even taxes.  Helping companies learn how to keep their costs down and have sound strategies maximizes their chance of success.  FitForLaunch’s experience allows us to help companies avoid pitfalls and save hundreds of thousands, if not millions.  A short conversation with an expert can have a huge impact and is an additional value for companies joining the platform.

FitForLaunch encourages companies with new products to take pre-orders using a crowdfunding-type mechanism as opposed to setting up their own ecommerce site until they are in stock.  Leveraging a platform like FitForLaunch also helps protect them from fraud, chargebacks and merchant processor holdback reserves.  Many creators do not realize that credit card processors have the potential to devastate a startup by denying them access to the funds they’ve raised.  New companies also may lack the resources for setting up their own ecommerce site and maintaining it along with screening purchases against fraud and dealing with chargebacks.

FitForLaunch was born out of witnessing failures that were predictable due to our fundamental understanding of the crowdfunding space and experience with manufacturing operations.  We saw trust in the crowdfunding space falling and wanted to do something about it.  We developed a proprietary system for predicting success – our own underwriting process for gaging risk.  We then surveyed buyers and found an underserved market of purchasers that would pre-order projects only if given a guarantee, even with a significant additional fee.  FitForLaunch was then setup as a way to effectively communicate and support our own vetting and guarantee process.

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Robert Hoskins
(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR

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Mr. Robert Hoskins is a seasoned marketing veteran with a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses as well as Fortune 500 corporations launch successful marketing communications campaigns to gain market traction for a wide variety of products and services.

On a regular basis, Mr. Hoskins consults with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

Google search “Robert Hoskins Crowdfunding” to see why Mr. Hoskins runs one of the industry’s foremost crowdfunding PR, social media and marketing agencies that has amassed a huge social media following and is dedicated to supporting a wide variety of donation, rewards and equity crowdfunding campaigns.

SpaceoutVR Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign on Netcapital.com to Raise Money for a New High Tech Mobile Virtual Reality Company

The team has had an exciting quarter leading up to this campaign, with several big milestones including a seed funding round with $365k invested

By Robert Hoskins

Troy, NY – SpaceoutVR, Inc. announced the launch of an equity crowdfunding campaign on Netcapital.coml to raise money for a Mobile Virtual Reality software company. Their product, Spaceout.VR is a free to play Social VR MMO for iOS & Android that monetizes with upgrades and features for entertainment, gaming and communications.

SpaceoutVR Launches Equity Crowdfunding Campaign on Netcapital.com to Raise Money for a New High Tech Mobile Virtual Reality Company

“We are pleased to offer our friends and fans an opportunity to grow with our company,” said SpaceoutVR’s CEO, V. Owen Bush. “Equity crowdfunding is how the future is funded and SpaceoutVR is the future of immersive entertainment.”

The VR MMO engages players with fun VR experiences. Players aim to win by building the biggest Space Station in VR. Using machine learning and social media analysis, the MMO populates personal spaces with the digital content that players love. A social feed allows players to meet, share, and leave messages for each other. A gamified user economy will drive the revenue of SpaceoutVR, Inc.

With two years of operations, over 250,000 app downloads and over $1.2M invested, the startup is on the launchpad to success. The team has had an exciting quarter leading up to this campaign, with several big milestones including a seed funding round with $365k invested.

SpaceoutVR has been selected as a top featured VR app for the Google Play Store and smashed new records in engagement with an average session of 18.33 mins in May. The team launched Spaceout.VR v 1.3.1 with a Social VR Feed and in-app 360 Photo Sharing.  Spaceout.VR is now a top featured app on the Google Cardboard VR Library.

On June 29, 2017, SpaceoutVR won the CEG Technology Award “Judges’ Choice for Technology”. They were also awarded a free booth at both TechCrunch Disrupt in May and at the Northside Festival, June 7-9 in New York.

The company was co-founded by four senior executives in Gaming, Entertainment and Digital Marketing. SpaceoutVR, Inc. hopes to become a defining brand in mass-market consumer VR, and they have the experience behind them to make it happen.

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Robert Hoskins
(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR

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Mr. Robert Hoskins is a seasoned marketing veteran with a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses as well as Fortune 500 corporations launch successful marketing communications campaigns to gain market traction for a wide variety of products and services.

On a regular basis, Mr. Hoskins consults with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

Google search “Robert Hoskins Crowdfunding” to see why Mr. Hoskins runs one of the industry’s foremost crowdfunding PR, social media and marketing agencies that has amassed a huge social media following and is dedicated to supporting a wide variety of donation, rewards and equity crowdfunding campaigns.

 

SoftBank Vision Fund Raises $93 Billion of $100 Billion Goal from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s PIF, the SoftBank Group and the UAE’s Mubadala Investment Company

The Vision Fund is expected to be active across a wide range of technology sectors, including: IoT, artificial intelligence, robotics, mobile apps, computing, communications infrastructure, telecoms, computational biology and other data-driven business models, cloud technologies and software, consumer internet businesses and fin-tech

By Robert Hoskins

St. Helier, Jersey –  The SoftBank Vision Fund announced its first major close with over U.S.$93 billion of committed capital. In addition to SoftBank Group Corp (SBG) and the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (PIF) as previously announced, investors in the Fund also include the Mubadala Investment Company of the United Arab Emirates (Mubadala), Apple Inc. (Apple), Foxconn Technology Group (Foxconn), Qualcomm Incorporated (Qualcomm) and Sharp Corporation (Sharp).

The Fund is targeting a total of U.S.$100 billion of committed capital, with a final close within six months.

SoftBank Vision Fund announced its first major close with over $93 billion of committed capital

SBG created the SoftBank Vision Fund as a result of its strongly held belief that the next stage of the Information Revolution is underway, and building the businesses that will make this possible will require unprecedented large scale long-term investment. Additionally, the Fund’s portfolio companies are expected to significantly benefit from SBG’s global scale and operational expertise, as well as its ecosystem of group portfolio companies (including Sprint and Yahoo Japan); this will thereby help them to accelerate their own growth profile.

The Fund will be SBG’s primary vehicle to realise its SoftBank 2.0 vision, with preferred access to investments of U.S. $100 million or more that meet the Fund’s investment strategy.

Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. said, “Technology has the potential to address the biggest challenges and risks facing humanity today. The businesses working to solve these problems will require patient long-term capital and visionary strategic investment partners with the resources to nurture their success. SoftBank has long made bold investments in transformative technologies and supported disruptive entrepreneurs. The SoftBank Vision Fund is consistent with this strategy and will help build and grow businesses creating the foundational platforms of the next stage of the Information Revolution.”

H.E. Yasir Al Rumayyan, Managing Director of the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, added, “Our investment in the SoftBank Vision Fund alongside other sovereign and corporate investors is an important part of our overall investment strategy. We are building a portfolio that is diversified across sectors, asset classes and geographies, and expect the Vision Fund to act as a platform to access a range of exciting, emerging opportunities in the technology sector. We expect that this will, in turn, help enable the Public Investment Fund’s role in supporting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 strategy to develop a diversified, knowledge-based economy.”

Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Group CEO of Mubadala Investment Company, said, “Our participation in the SoftBank Vision Fund perfectly complements Mubadala’s strategy as a long-term global investor and partner to the technology sector’s high-growth companies. Technology and innovation are central to the UAE’s economic diversification strategy, and we believe the Vision Fund has the scale to deploy significant capital into these disruptive industries that are shaping the future.”

Investment Strategy

The Fund will target meaningful, long-term investments in companies and foundational platform businesses that seek to enable the next age of innovation.

The Fund will seek to acquire minority and majority interests in both private and public companies, from emerging technology businesses to established, multi-billion dollar companies requiring substantial growth funding.

The Fund is expected to be active across a wide range of technology sectors, including but not limited to: IoT, artificial intelligence, robotics, mobile applications and computing, communications infrastructure and telecoms, computational biology and other data-driven business models, cloud technologies and software, consumer internet businesses and financial technology.

The Fund will have the right to acquire certain investments already acquired (or agreed to be acquired) by the SoftBank Group, including 24.99% of its holding in ARM, and investments in Guardant Health, Intelsat, NVIDIA, OneWeb and SoFi.

Key Leadership

The Fund will be advised by wholly-owned subsidiaries of SBG, known collectively as “SB Investment Advisers.”

Rajeev Misra will serve as the CEO of SB Investment Advisers and will be a member of the Investment Committee. He will play a key role in all Fund transactions, supported by a highly-experienced global team across offices in London, San Carlos, and Tokyo.

Nizar Al-Bassam and Dalinc Ariburnu of newly formed Centricus, who advised on structuring and fund raising efforts for the Vision Fund, will continue their roles as advisers.

ARM group

• SBG’s commitment to invest U.S. $28 billion in the Fund will be partially satisfied through the in-kind contribution of approximately 24.99% of the shares in ARM Holdings plc, at a value of approximately U.S.$8.2 billion.
• ARM will continue to be a consolidated subsidiary of SBG. SBG will continue to control (directly and indirectly) 100% of the voting rights of ARM, through its retained ownership of approximately 75.01% of the shares and its ownership of the entities managing and advising the Fund.
• In the course of discussions with certain investors in the Fund, a portion of ARM was requested to be transferred into the Fund based on the shared vision on the huge growth potential of ARM
• There will be no change to the Board, governance structure or operations of ARM as a result of the transfer.
• The investors in the Fund will not gain any special commercial benefits from ARM’s operating business.

Relationship to SoftBank Group Corp.

• The Fund’s general partner is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SBG, as are each of the SB Investment Advisers, including the Fund’s primary investment adviser, SB Investment Advisers (UK) Limited.
• SBG has subscribed for commitments of U.S. $28 billion to the Fund to be contributed through a combination of equity in ARM and cash on hand. The Fund will be consolidated by SBG for accounting purposes.
• While the Fund will be the primary investment vehicle for investments in excess of U.S.$100 million consistent with the Fund’s investment strategy, SBG (and its subsidiaries) may continue to make certain investments outside of the Fund, including (but not limited to) investments in early stage VC, strategic investments done at the operating company level, and/or other investments which do not fall within the Fund’s investment strategy and criteria.

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Robert Hoskins
(512) 627-6622
@Crowdfunding_PR

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Mr. Robert Hoskins is a seasoned marketing veteran with a proven track record of helping entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses as well as Fortune 500 corporations launch successful marketing communications campaigns to gain market traction for a wide variety of products and services.

On a regular basis, Mr. Hoskins consults with crowdfunding campaign managers as well as crowdfunding sites, portals and platforms to deliver successful crowdfunding marketing campaigns.

Google search “Robert Hoskins Crowdfunding” to see why Mr. Hoskins is considered one of the industry’s foremost crowdfunding experts that has amassed a huge social media following, which is dedicated to supporting donation, rewards and equity crowdfunding campaigns.

Top 10 Title III, Regulation Crowdfunding Offerings Ranked on the Amount of Crowdfunding Raised

Searching for the Hottest New Title III, Regulation Crowdfunding Investment Opportunities?

For fun, we thought we would keep track of the first wave to Title III, Regulation Crowdfunding Offerings to see who has raised the most money to date. The current crowdfunding campaigns are ranked in order by the amount of money they have raised as of May 24, 2016 at 4:00 pm.

After the first week, it looks like crowdfunding campaigns with lower investment amounts far outpaced larger investment requirements.  The same is true of lower crowdfunding investment goals. For example, GameTree has a minimum investment of $100 and a fundraising goal of $100,000 and barely two weeks into their campaign they are 90% funded.

If you’d like shop around and make your first non-accredited investment in a Title III, Regulation CF offering, please review from the offers listed below.

You might also check out their company websites, their social media credentials on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and then Google their founders names and companies to see what they have done to promote their company in the news media.

It will be easy to see what management teams have done the proper prep work, planned effective marketing campaigns and the others that haven’t even been able to put together a simple company website.

If they can’t build a simple website, how in the world can they run a successful business?

Here is also a quick snapshot of what Title III Crowdfunding Platforms have raised the most money:

1.   WeFunder.com            $243,871
2.   StartEngine                  $142,602
3.   SeedInvest                     $74,800
4.   NextSeed                        $26,900

Total: $461,273

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1. The Legion M Entertainment (media company)

Crowdfunding Platform: WeFunder

Amount Raised: $120,611

2. Taxa Biotechnologies (genetic plant engineers)

Crowdfunding Platform: WeFunder

Amount Raised:  $111,860

3. MF Fire (an app-drive, low emissions wood stove)

Crowdfunding Platform: SeedInvest

Amount Raised: $40,900

4. Native Hostel Austin (Luxury hostel in Austin

Crowdfunding Platform: NextSeed

Amount Raised: $26,900

5. Bloomery SweetShine (distillery)

Crowdfunding Platform: StartEngine

Amount Raised: $35,700

 

6. GameTree (Social network for gamers)

Crowdfunding Platform: StartEngine

Amount Raised:  $90,360

7. Treasure State Internet (fiber optic installation)

Crowdfunding Platform: WeFunder

Amount Raised:  $8,800

8. StartMart Cleveland (Coworking space)

Crowdfunding Platform: SeedInvest

Amount Raised: $7,000

9. Gigmor (Connecting bands with venues and gigs)

Crowdfunding Platform: StartEngine

Amount Raised: $14,905

10. Urban Juncture (developing commercial real estate)

Platform: WeFunder

Amount Raised: $2,600

11. Graphic Armor (personalized condoms)

Crowdfunding Platform: StartEngine

Amount Raised: $1,636

12. NextRX Inc (Medical marijuana network pass)

Crowdfunding Platform: StartEngine

Amount Raised:  $0

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IndieGoGo Crowdfunding Campaign Seeks Starting Goal of $50,000 to Spread Early Literacy Skills to One Million Preschoolers Through Storybooks, eBooks, Smartphone Apps, and Ed-Tech Website

Teaching Preschoolers Pre-Reading Skills Improves Academic Development, Promotes Lifelong Learning, Increases Family Engagement, and Instills Confidence and Perseverance When Faced With Challenges

By Robert Hoskins

Toronto, Ontario – Ruth Rumack’s Learning Space (RRLS) launched a $50,000 IndieGoGo Crowdfunding campaign that will pre-sell a set of five Alpha-Mania early childhood learning storybooks and other perks that will make teaching pre-reading skills fun for children, parents, teachers and caregivers. The Alpha-Mania storybooks are the result of teaching early literacy programs to thousands of young children over the past 16 years. Click here to watch the video.

Ruth Rumack’s Alpha-Mania Crowdfunding Campaign to Promote Early Childhood Literacy

All five of the Alpha-Mania books are written and ready to publish. The goal of the crowdfunding campaign will be to pay for large publishing production runs of the Alpha-Mania storybooks, and then digitize the materials and turn them into eBooks and Smartphone apps, and eventually expand the program to an online educational web series and website where caregivers, parents and teachers will be given access to a full library of ed-tech early literacy games and reading resources. The plan is to make ed-tech materials easy to download and use on a wide variety of Smartphones, iPads, tablets and other types of eLearning devices.

Over the years, the Alpha-Mania pre-reading program has given thousands of young children a head start in developing their early literacy skills at RRLS as well as numerous established daycares, preschools, and nurseries throughout Canada. The plan is now to expand the RRLS learning experience and share it with a global audience.

“Using the power of crowdfunding, we would like to not only pre-sell these lifelong learning materials to people and schools that can afford them, but also use a significant portion of the fundraising campaign’s proceeds to ship storybooks to educational centers where they will have the greatest impact,” says Ruth Rumack, RRLS’ Founder and Director of Education. “Regardless of a child’s living environment, many parents are simply not aware of the tremendous benefits that all children receive from learning phonological awareness at an early age.”

“Printing and shipping storybooks to customers is very expensive and time consuming,” adds Evan Brooker, RRLS’s CEO. “But once we raise enough money to digitize our materials and turn our pre-reading games and interactive activities into Smartphone, tablet and laptop apps, we can sell and distribute them worldwide for a fraction of our current costs. Instead of educating thousands, our goal is to raise awareness and teach millions of people the benefits of engaging their children with early literacy skills in order to build a strong foundation for reading and problem solving before they enter kindergarten.”

Crowdfunders who donate to the Alpha-Mania crowdfunding campaign will receive many valuable perks/rewards that will be sold in singles, multi-book packaged deals for small schools and will provide large school districts discounts when materials/training classes are purchased using licensing agreements.

Students, parents, teachers and schools who contribute money to the crowdfunding campaign can choose between unique perks such as attending the launch party, chatting with the author, or naming a character in one of the upcoming stories. Check out the crowdfunding campaign for more details.

Please buy one of the following Alpha-Mania perks to raise awareness for the benefits of teaching preschoolers early childhood learning skills:

• Alpha-Mania eBooks for Smartphones and Tablets
• Alpha-Mania Printed Storybooks for Parents
• Alpha-Mania Book, Tote Bag & T-Shirt
• Alpha-Mania 5-Book Story Book Series
• Alpha-Mania Skype Chat with Author
• Alpha-Mania Name a Character
• Alpha-Mania Family Portrait and Summer Camp in Toronto
• Alpha-Mania Training Classes for Teachers
• Alpha-Mania License for Daycares, Preschools & Kindergartens
• Alpha-Mania Mass Volume Book Deals for Large Schools

Early childhood learning years are critical for preschoolers because research shows that children gain a tremendous advantage in their ability to learn when they are taught to develop, not only academic skills, but also non-cognitive social and emotional skills and behaviors that lead to their long-term success.

There are many non-cognitive skills that are critical for an individual to strive for and succeed in when reaching long-term goals. Researchers have found that habits such as tenacity and perseverance can have just as strong an influence on achievement as intellectual ability.

What attitudes do children have about learning? Do they feel like their abilities in a subject are fixed — “I’m just not good at reading!” or do they recognize they can grow — “I can learn to read, but I need to learn some Alpha-Mania strategies to figure out tricky sounds and words in order to master the fun puzzle of reading.”

“Growth mindset,” for example, is more likely when students believe they can achieve and when they believe that intelligence is malleable rather than fixed. This also helps develop non-cognitive skills such as perseverance, self-regulation, and effective strategies for enhancing student motivation and engagement.

A large portion of the crowdfunding donations will be used to provide Alpha-Mania to underfunded schools and libraries. Donors will receive the satisfaction of knowing that they helped a small child develop pre-reading skills regardless of their current position in society and give them a head start in developing academic skills that will lead to a lifetime of learning as well as arm them with the confidence, tenacity and perseverance they will need when faced with tough lifetime challenges.

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Interactive Gaming Company Launches $300,000 EquityNet Crowdfunding Campaign to Develop and Market Software that Plays on SmartPhones, Personal Computers and Game Consoles

Halitron, Inc., formerly  Teknik Digital Arts, Inc., is engaged in the development and marketing of interactive gaming software to play on cell phones, personal computers, and game consoles

By Robert Hoskins

Newtown, Connecticut –Halitron, Inc., an equity investment holding company, (OTCPK: HAON.PK) announces the launch of a $300,000 equity raise through the EquityNet.com crowdfunding platform and is offering 21,428,571 common shares at $.014 per unit.

Halitron Equity Investment Holding Company

Halitron, Inc., formerly  Teknik Digital Arts, Inc., is engaged in the development and marketing of interactive gaming software to play on cell phones, personal computers, and game consoles. Over the coming weeks the Halitron will announce a new mission statement and outline its strategic plan which involves acquiring related sales & marketing as well as manufacturing businesses and rolling them into one very efficient and low cost operating infrastructure.

“After a thorough review of a number of crowdfunding platforms, we selected www.EquityNet.com’s portal as their service provides access to over 20,000 accredited investors.  We are excited to raise the initial capital which be utilized to further enhance operations and allow us to prepare for upcoming acquisitions,” states Bernard Findley, Halitron’s CEO.

Mr. Findley is experienced in growth opportunities as well as distressed acquisitions and work-outs.  He communicates with the investment community and operational teams in order to execute on strategic plans that are intended to benefit shareholders.

Since 2008, he has acquired and consulted for over 16 brands that were bankrupt, distressed, and/or insolvent.  Through these acquisitions, Mr. Findley gained invaluable experience with disappointed equity holders, senior lenders, unsecured vendors, and customers. While the turnaround world often comes with delivering “negative” messages, Mr. Findley has salvaged value on assets when many thought there was none.

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Front Page PR Seeks Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses and Franchises that Want to Take Advantage of the New Texas Crowdfunding Rules to Market Equity Investment Opportunities

Top 50 cities in Texas are home to 13.3 million residents that will soon be able to invest up to $5,000 per year in private equity investment opportunities

By Robert Hoskins

Austin, Texas – Front Page PR (www.crowdfundingPRcampaigns.com), one of America’s leading crowdfunding PR and marketing firms, announced that the firm is now seeking new startups and entrepreneurs that want to take advantage of the new Intrastate Texas Crowdfunding Exemption rules that allows companies to raise up to $1 million from non-accredited investors.

Front Page PR is one of the leading Crowdfunding PR firms in America

On December 1, 2014, for the first time in 80 years, Texas-based startups and entrepreneurs will be able to sell private equity shares to all residents living Texas. In addition, all parties will be able to use mass marketing to advertise and publicize their equity investment opportunities using media outlets that focus on Texas Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), which are home to more than 26 million potential customers.

Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA)	Population
Houston – The Woodlands – Sugar Land	6,484,279
Dallas – Plano – Richardson – Irving	4,627,393
Fort Worth – Arlington – HEB	2,358,186
San Antonio – New Braunfels	2,334,363
Austin-Round Rock	1,938,858
McAllen-Edinburg-Mission	862,768
El Paso	862,638
Killeen-Temple	445,356
Corpus Christi	443,351
Brownsville-Harlingen	439,437
Beaumont-Port Arthur	413,982
Lubbock	304,682
Laredo	275,686
Amarillo	265,821
Waco	260,728
College Station-Bryan	246,910
Longview	226,407
Tyler	222,781
Abilene	170,164
Wichita Falls	152,426
Midland	150,721
Odessa	145,960
Sherman-Denison	125,901
San Angelo	113,969
Victoria	96,883
Texarkana	93,457
Total:	24,063,107

Approximately 20 million of these customers are over the age of 18 and will be able to invest up to $5,000 per year in private equity placements. Once the state educates its residents and new investors become Internet savvy investors, Texas will represent a $100 billion per year pool of venture capital that small businesses and entrepreneurs can use to raise start up funding.

This will prove to be a boon for the large majority of ideas and business plans that are currently being rejected or ignored by the states 70+ business accelerators and incubators.

Any business that has received the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) rubber stamp to be pre-approved for SBA loans should strongly consider opening a business in Texas. Franchisors and franchises are the perfect business model to help franchisees raise money using the new Texas crowdfunding rules. Unlike many startups that will have an unproven track record, franchises with 5 or more profitable locations should be able to provide investors with a better than average chance of success.

Rural areas are a prime target for economic development in Texas where the demand is present for new restaurants, movie theaters, shopping malls, trampoline parks, entertainment venues, but until now have not had access to traditional venture capital due to their location.

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Contact:
Robert Hoskins
Front Page PR
(512) 627-6622
rhoskins@frontpagepr.com

 

Over the Past 35 Years, LearnToPlayMusic.com has Transformed the Music Lesson Industry Three Times, Generated More Than 25+ Million Book & Video Sales and is about to Launch the Next Spotify / Oyster Music Content Platform

Created for Musicians by Musicians, @LTPMusic has been pioneering the way people learn to play music utilizing printed music books, videos, CDs & DVDs, eBooks & WebTV shows and soon will be launching a brand new type of digital music teaching platform

By Robert Hoskins

Los Angeles, California – For a company that has defied convention by flying under the radar for most of its life, www.LearnToPlayMusic.com (originally called, Koala Music Publications) has a lot of reasons to celebrate on its 35th birthday. The company has just launched a new ecommerce website and wrapped up production on the first season of its acclaimed WebTV series, Music Space. Soon it will be unveiling a new state-of-the-art digital music lesson content platform that will provide the next game-changing evolution of the music learning industry for up and coming musicians.

As rock-n-roll musicians from the same music scene as AC/DC, playing on bills supporting INXS and other iconic Australian rock bands, Gary Turner and Brenton White found their passion in teaching people how to play music. Frustrated at the lack of music training materials for the contemporary guitarist, the duo sensed a huge business opportunity. In 1979 they drew up a business plan on a napkin and soon thereafter founded Koala Music Productions in Adelaide, Australia (click here to read the rest of the story).

LearnToPlayMusic’s Free Ebook and New Digital Music Teaching Platform

“When we first started, if you were a kid who really wanted to learn how to play the guitar, or the piano, or the violin, you had two options; you took lessons with a teacher or you bought a music lesson book from the local music store and taught yourself,” said Gary Turner, LearnToPlayMusic.com’s CEO. “In today’s world, kids are armed with laptops, tablets, and smartphones and now social media and digital content sharing networks are the focal point of their lives and are used 24×7 to keep in touch with friends and family. To tap into this new lifestyle, we realized that once again that we needed to transform our business. In 2009, we started this journey by digitizing over 35-years worth of music lessons, music books and an entire library of analog instructional music videos.”

“We have been tracking the success of subscription-based digital music, eBook and movie downloading services and platforms such as Amazon Prime, Oyster, Netflix, and Spotify. These media companies have been very successful at transforming the way they interact with and sell content and new services to customers,” Turner continued. “We think the music learning industry is going to be very impressed when we unveil our new leading-edge digital music platform, which will make it much easier for aspiring musicians, their parents and music teachers, music schools and music stores to get involved and share the wealth from the booming digital music industry.”

Turner added that, “Soon we will be launching an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that will allow musicians and anyone in the music teaching industry to get involved in building our platform. We will be offering some really cool perks to support and fund the project and give everyone that contributes a small piece of the action.”

To receive more information on LearnToPlayMusic.com’s new Digital Media Platform please register at www.learntoplaymusic.com/freemium or contact Gary Turner at gat@learntoplaymusic.com.

A full press kit is available at www.learntoplaymusic.com/press-room.

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IgnitionDeck Acquires Crowdfunding Assets Fundify and CrowdPress to Power Star Citizen-Class Fundraising Campaigns on WordPress

The growing software developer has embarked on a strategy to buy up  and integrate the world’s most powerful crowdfunding tools on the WordPress platform in order to build best-of-breed fundraising platforms

 By Robert Hoskins

Apollo Beach, Florida – IgnitionDeck, Inc. announced that it has acquired two of the most popular and powerful tools that offer customers a  no-commission-fee crowdfunding platform. Fundify was purchased from Astoundify and CrowdPress was purchased from BoxyStudio. These assets position IgnitionDeck as a powerful force in the crowdfunding industry and gives the company a dominant position within one of the leading online publishing platforms, WordPress, which accounts for more than 60 million websites worldwide.

IgnitionDeck – The Crowdfunding Industry’s Most Popular WordPress Platform Templates

IgnitionDeck’s No-Commission-Fee crowdfunding tools let fundraisers host their own donation pages, keep all of the money that they raise, and control their relationship with users. Self-hosted campaigns offer a professional-looking and money-saving alternative to sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, which charge commissions on all funds raised, limit fundraising time periods, impose their own branding, and control the communications between fundraisers and donors.

A crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter campaign that raises $2 million would pay a platform commission fee of 5% or $100,000 for doing nothing more than allowing a client to upload a video, write a crowdfunding profile and add up to 20 perks.  A similar campaign running on Indiegogo that falls $1 short of its goal would pay a 9% commission or $180,000.

For example, Star Citizen, one of the most funded crowdfunding campaigns in history utilized a Kickstarter campaign, running between October 19th and November 19th, 2012. It raised $2,134,374, but had to pay a Kickstarter commission fee of approximately $106,718.

Roberts Space Industries, Chris Robert’s  Star Citizen is the Most Funded Crowdfunding Campaign in History, Dwarfing Kickstarter and Indiegogo

To circumvent paying this fee for their second crowdfunding campaign, Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts turned to IgnitionDeck to help him host his own fundraising campaign using his video game’s website, Roberts Space Industries, versus going with Kickstarter.  Star Citizen used IgnitionDeck for the first $13 million, thus at 5%, saved ~$650,000 by going IgnitionDeck direct.

After that, Star Citizen hired Turbulent to further customize the Star Citizen/Roberts Space Industries site and as of July 13, 2014, the Star Citizen campaign had raised approximately $48,050,064 from 498,029 pledges, which is more than any Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign.

Customers that have a large community of followers and feel comfortable in setting a goal of $2 million or more on Kickstarter would save a minimum of $100,000 by hosting an IgnitionDeck crowdfunding campaign on their own website. The more money raised, the more IgnitionDeck will save them.

After the experience with such a successful crowdfunding campaign, the IgnitionDeck management team realized that they needed more functionality.  Of all the tools they analyzed, it was clear that buying the functionality that the Fundify and CrowdPress themes provided would be strategic to the future direction of IgnitionDeck’s WordPress crowdfunding platform.

Launched in 2012, Fundify soon became one of the most popular tools for hosting multiple crowdfunding projects simultaneously, enabling people to “be their own Kickstarter.” The CrowdPress design theme provides a customizable front-end to Fundify’s functionality. All of these solutions– IgnitionDeck, Fundify, and CrowdPress– let hosts avoid the typical 4% to 9% commissions levied by commercial crowdfunding sites, have sold thousands of copies, and enjoy active user communities.

According to IgnitionDeck co-founder Nathan Hangen, “The IgnitionDeck and Astoundify teams have had multiple positive interactions. During one recent conversation, we began toying with the idea of bringing Fundify into the IgnitionDeck product suite. Within weeks, both teams knew it was the right thing to do, agreed on the terms, and shook hands.” Says Astoundify co-founder Adam Pickering, “We’re proud of Fundify, and all of the success and good will that it has generated. We are glad to see it become part of the IgnitionDeck family– it’s a perfect match.”

In January 2014, Indiegogo announced Indiegogo Outpost, which replicates IgnitionDeck’s ability to embed a crowdfunding campaign on a host’s website. The Outpost feature was scheduled for release Q1 2014, but it has not yet been delivered as of this writing.

The Fundify theme only costs $60. IgnitionDeck yearly license fees range between $79 and $349. WordPress hosting for a 90-day campaign costs about $20.  All forms of online crowdfunding incur transaction fees from a payment processor such as Amazon, PayPal, Stripe or WePay.

WordPress is a robust publishing system that takes most non-computer literature users a day or so to learn. The other option is to hire  a WordPress consultant who is familiar with off-the-shelf tools like IgnitionDeck and Fundify to create and launch a custom crowdfunding site for you.

In addition to standalone crowdfunding platforms for single campaigns, the IgnitionDeck Enterprise Edition allows anyone to build a full-scale, white-labeled crowdfunding site that can be branded and setup to compete directly with Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

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