EquityNet Crowdfunding Site Surpasses $300 Million Raised by Equity Crowdfunding Entrepreneurs

EquityNet platform now includes over 16,000 listed companies and 120,000 entrepreneurs and investors, making EquityNet one of the industry’s leading business crowdfunding platforms

By Robert Hoskins

Fayetteville, Arkansas –  EquityNet announced that its  equity crowdfunding platform has surpassed $300 million in funding raised by thousands of entrepreneur members. The pioneering EquityNet platform now includes over 16,000 listed companies and 120,000 entrepreneurs and investors, making EquityNet one of the industry’s leading business crowdfunding platforms.

EquityNet Equity Crowdfunding Platform for Accredited Investors

“Once again, we’re very proud to announce the continuing growth of our platform and are delighted that so many companies have achieved funding success through EquityNet,” stated Judd Hollas, founder and CEO of EquityNet. “As our membership and the crowdfunding industry as a whole continue to grow, we will continue to streamline the funding process for entrepreneurs and the due diligence process for investors. Our goal is to create a superb experience for investors and a higher funding success rate for entrepreneurs.”

EquityNet was founded in 2005 and was one of the first operating crowdfunding platforms in the world. Since its inception, it has allowed entrepreneurs from all industry sectors to connect with accredited investors to raise capital for their startups and small businesses.

Using EquityNet, these entrepreneurs have raised one of the largest amounts of equity, debt, and royalty-based business capital in the industry. Companies like Mine Shaft Brewing based in Park City, Utah, have taken full advantage of the capabilities that EquityNet has to offer.

“EquityNet’s platform provides a high-quality investor population and awesome support from their staff. We were able to raise over $650,000 within several months. When it comes to crowdfunding, EquityNet is where you need to be,” said Tim Nemeckay, CEO of Mine Shaft Brewing.

Crowdfunding has been shown to improve the capitalization of young businesses, often considered to be the most limiting factor in modern capitalism. The US JOBS Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2012, focuses on the growth of privately-held companies in the United States. In September 2013, EquityNet was the first crowdfunding platform to enable Title II of the US JOBS Act, which allows businesses to publicly advertise their need for equity funding online and take advantage of the lifting of the eighty year-old ban on general solicitation in the United States.

In addition to the ability for entrepreneurs to publicly advertise their need for funding, EquityNet provides entrepreneurs and investors the most advanced crowdfunding technologies in the global industry. EquityNet currently holds five granted crowdfunding patents and additional pending patents in the United States, covering multiple distinct inventions.

This leading technology provides innovative campaign creation and distribution abilities for entrepreneurs and is combined with the industry’s most advanced screening and due diligence technology for investors.

David Mandel, Chairman and Co-Founder of Bitvore stated, “Our success with EquityNet has been excellent. We have found investors who have provided our company with new connections, industry experience, and other strategic values.”

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EquityNet Unveils First General Solicitation Equity Crowdfunding Investment Deal Distribution Network

EquityNet Teams Up with MarketWatch, CrowdWatch to begin Broadcasting Equity Investment Deals Where Accredited Investors Can Invest Online through Crowdfunding Platforms such as SeedInvest and RealtyShares

By Robert Hoskins

 More than 4,500 broker dealers now have the legal right to market equity investment deals via advertising, marketing, PR and social media now that the SEC has lifted the 80-year ban on General Solicitation.   And while most broker dealers have not taken advantage of the new law, EquityNet has now taken the lead by announcing the launch of a new equity investment deal distribution network with Dow Jones MarketWatch via Crowdnetic and with North Capital Private Securities.

Through partnerships with Crowdnetic and North Capital, businesses can now use EquityNet to showcase their private offerings on MarketWatch, CrowdWatch, and other crowdfunding platforms such as  SeedInvest and RealtyShares, thereby gaining exposure to thousands of additional investors.

EquityNet Equity Crowdfunding Platform for Accredited Investors

EquityNet founder and CEO, Judd Hollas, stated, “I am excited about our new partnerships with Crowdnetic and North Capital Private Securities.  Businesses using EquityNet now have the unparalleled ability to distribute their deals to large extendable networks featuring tens of thousands of visitors and potential investors.”

“As a leading provider of financial information and market data, we at MarketWatch are pleased to offer the first publicly available private offerings on a major financial media website” said Ian Rosen, Vice President and General Manager of MarketWatch.

According to Crowdnetic founder and CEO, Luan Cox, “EquityNet is a wonderful addition to our Private Offerings dashboard on MarketWatch and CrowdWatch and is bringing many new private offerings and quality businesses to MarketWatch, CrowdWatch, and our broader distribution network.”

In addition to deal distribution with MarketWatch and CrowdWatch, businesses using EquityNet can also tap into the placement capabilities of North Capital Private Securities, a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC, to distribute their private offerings to other crowdfunding platforms such as SeedInvest and RealtyShares.

“EquityNet has built a great technology platform that prepares entrepreneurs to access the capital markets and enables investors to research, compare, and benchmark private companies.  We are excited for the opportunity to offer North Capital’s distribution abilities to their customers,” said Jim Dowd, Managing Director of North Capital.  “We expect that our relationships with other platforms, angel networks, independent broker-dealers, investment advisors, and institutional investors will help many EquityNet customers secure the financing they need to grow their businesses.”

Privately-held businesses can use EquityNet’s new distribution network and patented technology to showcase their private offerings on MarketWatch and CrowdWatch with the click of a button and on other crowdfunding platforms through engagement of North Capital Private Securities.  Both of these distribution abilities are readily available to all businesses that sign up with EquityNet and create a free business profile.

According to industry research by Massolution and the World Bank, crowdfunding generated $5.1 billion in funding transactions in 2013 and will surpass $300 billion in funding transactions by 2025. Within the next year, Title III of the US JOBS Act is expected to go into effect, allowing non-accredited investors to invest in startups in exchange for equity.  Experts have estimated that crowdfunding could expand the population of potential investors from 2 million to over 50 million investors.

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EquityNet Issues Equity Crowdfunding Research Report with Six Years of Data

By Robert Hoskins, Front Page PR

EquityNet unveiled a free Equity Crowdfunding Industry Research Report containing statistics and trends based on U.S. businesses that used EquityNet from 2007 to 2012 to seek equity-based crowdfunding from accredited Reg D investors.

Presented in the form of an embeddable infographic, the report presents some of the first statistics available on the original form of equity crowdfunding that involves the use of funding platforms such as EquityNet by accredited investors.  It provides insight into how crowdfunding will appear under the deregulating provisions of the U.S. JOBS Act in which millions of non-accredited investors will be able to invest in privately-held businesses.

In introducing the report, Judd Hollas , EquityNet’s founder and CEO, said that the crowdfunding industry is hungry for “more data and less rhetoric.”  “We are in the unique position of having 6 years of granular data from our patented platform and prepared this report to provide a statistical industry perspective for investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, service providers, and others in the crowdfunding ecosystem.  Although some high-level information has been available, the trends and statistics that emerge from this report present valuable new insights into the emerging crowdfunding industry.”

The new report contains business composition statistics and trends for many important attributes and even demonstrates the effects of the recession.  For example, the average amount of capital being sought by entrepreneurs has varied greatly since EquityNet launched its platform in 2007.  In 2008 the average capital sought was $2.5 million and dropped to an average of$800,000 by 2010.  The economic downturn also left its mark on companies’ average pre-investment valuation, which fell from$6 million in 2008 down to nearly $3 million by 2010.  Both of those metrics strengthened along with the economy by 2012.

Among other statistics presented and analyzed in the report are:

• Consumer and business product/service companies account for over 40% of equity crowdfunding activity. These are industries that were previously underserved by traditional venture capital.
• Around 50% of businesses that use equity crowdfunding seek less than $500,000 in investment capital.
• Valuations vary widely in equity crowdfunding with around 40% of pre-money valuations being under $1,000,000.
• Approximately 70% of businesses seeking equity crowdfunding had no revenue in the previous year, but 75% of those businesses expect to generate revenue in their current fiscal year, indicating that the majority are at the revenue-inflection point.
• 15% of businesses seeking funding are currently profitable, and 90% of the remainder predict that they will be profitable in 3 years or less.
• 30% of the businesses in the sample have patents or patent applications for proprietary technology.

Hollas noted that the sample analyzed for the report involved over 1,000 businesses and emphasized the significance to the industry of the first data-driven report based on 6 years of operation in the equity crowdfunding industry.

“We feel that these statistics provide the first-ever information that can be readily extrapolated to represent the entire crowdfunding industry.  Our report contains 15 data-packed charts, graphs, and related commentary.  We hope that entities in the crowdfunding ecosystem find our report helpful as we approach the anticipated early-2014 date for the SEC to finalize their regulation-making process that will give legs to the Title III of the JOBS Act of 2012.”

EquityNet prepared this crowdfunding report in response to the widespread interest in equity crowdfunding as provided in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act that President Obama signed into law in April 2012.  The JOBS Act relaxes regulations on fundraising for privately-held businesses and gives online funding platforms like EquityNet more flexibility in facilitating that fundraising.

The crowdfunding provisions of the Act are getting the most attention because they will allow entrepreneurs to solicit the general public for investment, an activity that was previously prohibited.  Proponents of the Act state that it will directly lead to more businesses starting and to increased employment – and that it will encourage business and technological innovation in the U.S.