March 28, 2014 @ 11:36 am By Charles Luzar  |  

CircleUp has announced a $14 million Series B round that will introduce a new venture capital firm into their existing mix. Canaan Partners has led the round, which also includes investment from previous CircleUp investors Google Ventures and Union Square Ventures. This is the second… Read More

March 28, 2014 @ 11:00 am By Charles Luzar  |  

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably been exposed to some of the promise everyone found in the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign. The democratization of film finance! People funding films they want to see made! We don’t need the studios! A new accredited-only crowdfunding platform… Read More

March 28, 2014 @ 10:28 am By Charles Luzar  |  

The Pono Music campaign continues to ascend Kickstarter’s all-time most funded list. The “end-to-end ecosystem for music lovers” has garnered nearly 15,000 backers at the time of writing and had raised just short of $5 million. Thanks everyone for all of your support. It has… Read More

March 28, 2014 @ 9:58 am By Charles Luzar  |  

It seems everyone has an opinion on Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR and what it means for crowdfunding. That was the topic of conversation on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.” Yesterday the program hosted New York University Stern School of Business Professor Anindya Ghose and a… Read More

March 28, 2014 @ 9:20 am By Charles Luzar  |  

So you’ve got a great idea for a product. Some great pain point in your life would disappear if this product existed, and of course you aren’t unique; in solving your problems you’ll solve the same problem for millions of other people. It’s perfect. The… Read More

March 27, 2014 @ 1:20 pm By Charles Luzar  |  

So did you hear that Facebook bought Oculus VR for $2 billion? It’s the story that the entire tech world was talking about, and for good reason. Oculus is a clear leader in the world of virtual reality hardware. It’s one of the poster children… Read More

March 27, 2014 @ 11:47 am By Charles Luzar  |  

Realty Mogul has raised a $9 million Series A round led by Canaan Partners. This news comes on the heels of an announcement that Realty Mogul has funded properties totaling $100 million in value. “Our goal is to bring the $11 trillion commercial real estate… Read More

March 25, 2014 @ 5:50 pm By Charles Luzar  |  

Mark Zuckerberg just announced Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR in a post to… you guessed it. Post by Mark Zuckerberg. WOW. Early investor Chris Dixon lauded the team… I can’t say enough about the Oculus team. Palmer, Brendan, John, Nate, and the rest of the… Read More

March 25, 2014 @ 12:48 pm By Charles Luzar  |  

Felix Kjellberg is better known by the name of PewDiePie, and he is one of a handful of wildly successful gamers that have used YouTube as a means of building a following. Actually, that may be putting it a bit lightly. He has the most subscribers… Read More

March 25, 2014 @ 11:57 am By Charles Luzar  |  

Meet Frank Bell. The Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter is trying to blaze a path to success, and for artists like Bell that path increasingly includes crowdfunding. As part of a joint effort between TED and Skype, Bell recently had the chance to ask questions of a panel… Read More

March 25, 2014 @ 11:17 am By Charles Luzar  |  

A report from CB Insights shows that companies in the ever-growing “Internet of Things” space have seen an uptick in investment throughout 2013. Many of these companies have used crowdfunding as part of their capital raising and marketing strategy. Related: Kickstarter Alum SmartThings Closes $12.5 Million… Read More

March 24, 2014 @ 10:55 am By Charles Luzar  |  

Indiegogo was all over SXSW this year as evidenced in part by our recent breakdown of Indiegogo campaigns represented at this year’s festival. Indiegogo has now also released an album of pictures from their time in Austin. The photos are below. For the full Facebook… Read More

March 24, 2014 @ 10:35 am By Charles Luzar  |  

Rodrigo Davies writes regularly on the topic of civic crowdfunding at the MIT Center for Civic Media blog, and his most recent post raises an important and interesting question: is crowdfunding participatory citizenship or a sign of institutions in decline? He frames the question in… Read More

March 24, 2014 @ 10:11 am By Charles Luzar  |  

The One Spark festival in Jacksonville, Florida is huge… perhaps so huge that the idea has outgrown the Jacksonville metro area. There have long been rumors that One Spark would eventually make its way to other cities, and that seems to be coming to fruition…. Read More

March 24, 2014 @ 10:00 am By Charles Luzar  |  

The Michigan Invests Locally Exemption, or MILE for short, has its first potential benefactor. Tecumseh Brewing Co. will seek cash from the crowd in exchange for a revenue share in a bid to launch operations in Tecumseh, Michigan. The two cofounders, Tim Schmidt and Kyle… Read More

March 22, 2014 @ 1:11 pm By Charles Luzar  |  

OurCrowd Head of Investor Community & Partnerships Zack Miller recently hosted a webinar that featured Heidi Brun, Joint Head of the Patent Department at Eitan, Mehulal & Sadot. The webinar tackles common investor pitfalls related to IP, including but not limited to… The various types of Intellectual… Read More

March 22, 2014 @ 1:03 pm By Charles Luzar  |  

In the Miami Herald it was recently revealed that a handful of Guantanamo detainees have generated a business plan for an agricultural venture in Yemen. Called “Yemen Milk & Honey Farms Ltd,” the proposal outlines a “self-sufficient agricultural business west of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a.” The 75… Read More

March 22, 2014 @ 12:33 pm By Charles Luzar  |  

It may not be taking place online, but a crowdfunding campaign is seeking cash to support the Ukranian Defense Ministry and, by proxy, the Ukranian Army. Donations are being taken in part via cell phone, and supporters are being encouraged to text “565.” The text… Read More

March 22, 2014 @ 10:32 am By Charles Luzar  |  

CrowdCheck has released the following comparative analysis of intrastate crowdfunding exemptions, providing a concise view of happenings in the various states that are currently considering crowdfunding exemptions. Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin are the only states to buck the $1 million annual cap on fundraising… Read More

March 22, 2014 @ 10:17 am By Charles Luzar  |  

Pebble still holds the record for the biggest Kickstarter campaign of all time. So, did crowdfunding success translate into big numbers in the world of retail? The figures suggest that Pebble has certainly found their niche. The company has generated a napkin math estimate of… Read More