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Breaking Down The 2013 Crowdfunding World Summit

Mark Perlmutter is organizing the 2013 Crowdfunding World Summit, a two week online event that will bring crowdfunding experts from all over the world together for a comprehensive series of interviews discussing the history, current context and future path of crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding enthusiasts and interested parties can register for the event at CrowdfundingWorldSummit.com.

Registration is free. The event will begin on August 25th at 5 PM PST. Three interviews will be available to stream online each day during the event, which will end on September 7th.

I recently spoke with Mr. Perlmutter about the upcoming event and his hopes for what attendees can glean from it.

The event is divided into four sections or “tracks” as follows…

1. Track one: Government & Legal
   This track will include lawmakers as well as representatives from the Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CfIRA) and the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA). Also participating are representatives from the White House and US lawmakers. This track discusses the current and past regulatory contexts surrounding crowdfunding in different parts of the world.
2. Track two: The Business of Crowdfunding
   This track includes platform representatives from companies already facilitating equity crowdfunding offerings in Europe and Australia, as well as companies that plan to grow in (and with) the crowdfunding space. This track will examine the state of crowdfunding from an important point of view, that belonging to the entrepreneurs that power the space.
3. Track three: The Intersection of the Green Economy and Crowdfunding
   This track includes leaders from the green and socially responsible investment world as well as outspoken people from nonprofits and NGOs promoting green business both at the business and consumer levels. The goal of this track is “to help the general public as well as businesspeople understand that affinity marketing is what crowdfunding is all about, so its a perfect match for a cause-related business to raise capital or presell its products to its intended fans and to its current customers and future customers using crowdfunding as a method.”
4. Track four: Real Estate
   Perlmutter says that real estate “is a sleeping giant–literally–in the crowdfunding world.” This track includes representatives from platforms in the real estate space as well as real estate investors. Perlmutter believes that crowdfunding has a huge opportunity to change how real estate development happens. He gives a nod to the (often valid) social and environmental concerns from activists and residents when new buildings are proposed, but he believes there is a power in having a few hundred local investors in a project that can advocate for the project’s completion and resulting positive effect on the community around it.

Intrastate crowdfunding may be the big underlying story during the event. As states like Georgia and North Carolina move forward on their own crowdfunding initiatives, Perlmutter thinks this will be an increasingly important approach especially in the absence of any meaningful movement on the JOBS Act. “Marrying up a state crowdfunding law with current state direct public offering laws provide a funding track that is very exciting,” he said.

Source: Crowdfund Insider

Crowdfunding – The Scottish Perspective

This morning a report, commissioned by the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, was released at a breakfast event in Society M in Glasgow. Called “Crowdfunding – The Scottish Perspective” the report was produced by twintangibles and sets out the findings of a comprehensive review of the Scottish business communities awareness of, and attitude to, crowdfunding and how well it might fit the finance shortfall that persists post the financial and economic crisis of 2008

Amongst its key findings is that there is an ongoing need for finance particularly in the SME sector. This will come a no surprise to even a casual observer of the UK wide business environment. But what is much more interesting is that the size of funding typically sought, and the purpose to which it will be put, both fit well with crowdfunding.

Firms in the survey sought a range of sums which averaged at c.£50,000 and in many cases the funds were sought for innovation and new product or service development. Crowdfunding in its many forms is well able to provide this  sort of sum for a well managed project, and the crowdvalidation element of a crowdfunding project can bring considerable benefit to those developing innovative and new products or service.

However, it is also apparent that Scotland is significantly under utilising the opportunity presented by crowdfunding, and there is no simple answer as to why this is.

It does seem that the awareness and deeper understanding of the potential for crowdfunding needs to be more widely embedded in the business community to build the confidence to turn an interest in crowdfunding into active engagement.

We believe the commissioning of the report and its release today was a far sighted act by the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and we hope that it marks the beginning of a process that we hope will lead to Scotland taking up a greater share of the crowdfunding opportunity available.

You can find much more detail and food for thought in the complete survey and, best of all, its free!

You can download and read the report here

Source: Twintangibles

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