Equity Crowdfunding

This week on OurCrowd’s QuickFire webinar: Mark One, Influitive, and ElMindA

This week on OurCrowd’s QuickFire webinar: Mark One, Influitive, and ElMindA

Jun 4, 2015 | , ,

Check it out: May was one of OurCrowd’s most active months to date for investment opportunities. As part of OurCrowd’s new QuickFire webinar series, we presented three of our latest investment opportunities — Mark One (lifestyle tech), Influitive (advocate marketing), and ElMindA (brain mapping) — in order to allow investors to get to know the companies, hear updates, and meet their platforms. View the webinar recording below or online here. QuickFire Webinar: A Chance to Meet 3 Companies in 1 Hour (6/3/15) The next QuickFire webinar will be held later this month, for information and updates on the time and date email us at webinar@ourcrowd.com. To find out more about these investment opportunities and others on our investment platform, click here. ——— [xyz-ihs...

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GE Ventures and OurCrowd: Breaking new ground in innovation finance

GE Ventures and OurCrowd: Breaking new ground in innovation finance

Jun 3, 2015 | , ,

In the spirit of crowdbuilding, last month OurCrowd hosted a special visit by GE Senior executives from the U.S. at our Jerusalem offices. The event joined the GE team with our portfolio’s entrepreneurs to discuss ways to collaborate company growth. Partners since November 2013, GE is looking to contribute investment dollars as well as experience and expertise to OurCrowd investments. The partnership allows GE Ventures to co-invest alongside OurCrowd in companies that are focused on GE’s core industries of healthcare, software, energy and advanced manufacturing. Throughout the day, participants took part in various round table discussions, including: Key Decisions in Commercialization Strategy by Brett May – Head of Ventures and Business Development, GE Software How to Pitch Investors by David Mayhew, GE Ventures – Chief Risk Officer Impactful Branding & Communications for Startups by Andy Goldberg – GE Corporate Global Creative Director Importance of Strategic Partnerships by Karen Kerr – Senior Managing Director, Advanced Manufacturing Financial Planning & Reporting: Smart Cash Management by Dennis Cinelli – GE Ventures Chief Financial Officer Impactful Branding & Communications for Startups by Andy Goldberg –...

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Impact Investing 101: How to generate social and environmental impact alongside financial return

Impact Investing 101: How to generate social and environmental impact alongside financial return

May 17, 2015 | , ,

What is impact investing, anyway? It is becoming increasingly apparent that private enterprise can play an important role in solving critical social and environmental challenges. Investors realize that these companies can have a meaningful impact on the world while delivering financial returns at the same time, enabling investors to “do good while doing well.” This has given rise to a large, growing movement known as impact investing. Impact investments are investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. Impact investments provide capital to support companies aiming to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges. Typical sector targets for impact investment are: sustainable agriculture and development, affordable housing, affordable and accessible healthcare, education, microfinance and financial inclusion, and clean technology. My interest in impact investing stems from a variety of personal and professional experiences over the past couple of years. The initial spark was lit when I heard Sir Ronald Cohen speak about the subject around two years ago at an event in Israel (he believes social impact investing will be the...

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“Tear down this wall!” How crowdfunding is changing the world

“Tear down this wall!” How crowdfunding is changing the world

May 5, 2015 | , ,

One of the greatest benefits of the internet age has been the breaking down of barriers. Internet based real-time communication has broken down barriers of distance, social networks have eliminated the constraints of first degree relationships, online marketplaces have removed the layers of middlemen between vendors and consumers, cloud computing has lowered the cost hurdle of developing and deploying software, the blockchain promises to circumvent centralized intermediaries and the inherent global reach of the internet (2.8+ billion users) has made barriers to content distribution a thing of the past. Crowdfunding is one of the latest internet trends that follows in this spirit. Capital has historically been one of the most difficult things to access for large percentages of the population. Most individuals are repeatedly unsuccessful in their attempts to secure a loan to cover personal expenses, raise money to expand a small business, or bring in external funding to help get an innovative idea off the ground, running into walls at every turn. These walls come in many forms (geographic or demographic disadvantage, lack of influential relationships, cost, etc.),...

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Lessons from Passover: The 4 Sons of Angel Investing

Lessons from Passover: The 4 Sons of Angel Investing

Apr 2, 2015 | , ,

With the holiday of Passover ready to drop at the end of this week, it offers a good time to reflect. One of the best known sections of the Passover ritual meal is the recitation of the “4 Sons”. These prototypical characters represent all of us — different types of people, each with their own types of questions that stem from our experiences and individualized views of the world. Each son asks his own question. Instead of providing an overarching singular answer to these sons’ questions, the Passover Hagaddah answers the 4 sons by addressing the subtext behind the questioner himself (and not just the question itself). Of course, while enjoying the holiday, we’re focused on the experience with our friends and family, but we’re also investors at heart. I couldn’t help but transpose these 4 sons and their questions to the investing world and in the process, address some key tenets core to angel investing and our crowd investing model. So, here it goes… OurCrowd’s 4 Sons (of Angel Investing) The Wise Son: What does the wise son...

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