Crowdfunding: who needs banks?
Published by Stijn June 8th, 2007 in The how and what of CrowdSourcing, CrowdSourcing Initiative
Crowdsourcing changes the way we fund our businesses and finance our lives. Who needs banks when we have the crowds?
In western civilization there is a long long tradition of turning to the public when in need of funds. But investing in new ventures is a risky trade and you would be completly bonkers to invest your life savings into something you are not well informed about. As a matter of fact, the trading of, supplying information about and the managing of investments is a very large entreprise itself nowadays. The internet would not be the internet however, if i hadn’t drasticly changed that.
Not only can companies communicate more directly to their investors, they can circumvent the middlemen (i.e. the stock exchange) and liquidize more abstract objects (such as bands) since the overhead goes down while transparency goes up. This phenomenon which we call crowdfunding is growing rapidly. One of it’s prime examples is Sellaband.
Here’s a list, we’re a directory after all 
12 Responses to “Crowdfunding: who needs banks?”
- 1 Pingback on Feb 14th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
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…and don´t forget the new Dutch. Prosper/Zopa-like initiative: Boober, http://www.boober.nl/
Hey thanks, I will look into it.
Thanks guys. Once again, super helpful information. There’s several outfits here I wasn’t tracking until I googled “crowdfunding” and got this post. Keep up the good work.
New site on the crowdfunding block - IndieGoGo.
IndieGoGo is an online social marketplace connecting filmmakers and fans to make independent film happen. The platform provides filmmakers the tools for project funding, recruiting, and promotion, while enabling the audience to discover and connect directly with filmmakers and the causes they support. Since launching at Sundance 08, filmmakers have successfully raised thousands of dollars with DIWO (Do-it-with-others) funding.
Good stuff…
New boy in the block… and concept they use is quite cool.
MyMoneytree.TV rise funds for emerging companies in different areas: HiTech,Green Energy,Green Fuels,Green Cars,Ethic Dating services, Worldwide Resorts. Many more coming!
http://boulat.com/u.php?40
Hey there,
Nice list you got there….
You can add a lot more to them now I think, like for exemple pifworld.com, 1%club
and our own site..
Check it guyS! And lots of luck with the crowd and the funding!
There’s www.rockethub.com
This is a great post - but I just want to point out that crowd-funding isn’t as easy as it sounds. I’m trying to raise money for the printing of a series of books for toddlers to help them build cognitive skills (worldoflil.com) - and once you tap your family and friends the big challenge is - how do i get anyone not associated with me already to jump in? Or even to become aware of the project. Questions such as this need to be answered before you start your raise… I tried to do this to the best of my ability and am still just 1/3 raised with about 35 days to go via kickstarter. It’s not as easy as ‘build it and they will come’.