Startup Investing

GE Ventures makes first investment via equity crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd

GE Ventures makes first investment via equity crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd

Oct 2, 2014 | , , , ,

We’re proud to announce that MedAware, an OurCrowd portfolio company, has closed its investment of $1 million from GE Ventures and OurCrowd investors. This financing round marks the first investment the venture capital arm of GE, GE Ventures, has made as part of the strategic co-investment partnership OurCrowd signed with the firm back in November 2013. We believe we have reached a real milestone and transformative moment in the world of high-tech finance. This investment underscores the fact that the startup investment playing field is being levelled — OurCrowd investors get access to the same deals multi-billion dollar corporations are seeing, at the same terms. We are looking forward to driving innovation forward with GE Ventures, whose unequalled expertise and experience in a broad range of technologies and businesses add real value to our portfolio companies and to our investor community. “We are excited about the potential for MedAware to solve the huge problem of prescription error via their impressive big data technology,” said Jon Medved, founder and CEO of OurCrowd. “The fact that our partner, General Electric, has joined together with us in...

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The ultimate stock market investor’s guide to investing in startups

The ultimate stock market investor’s guide to investing in startups

Oct 1, 2014 | , ,

Most investors ‘come of age’ learning the mechanics and strategy of investing through their involvement in stock markets. That makes sense: stock markets are typically comprised of the largest and most stable companies within a geography, with enough interest that investors can relatively easily buy and sell shares. Individual shares and mutual funds populate many long-terms investors’ retirement portfolios. And it’s the stock market, we’ve always been told, that deserves investors’ dollars and attention. But as new technology enables investing in newer, different types of assets, stock market investors are beginning to look beyond just investing in the stock market and more towards investing in alternative assets: like real estate, commodities, and more often, startups. For the sake of this article, we’re going to focus on investing in small, growth-oriented private companies (startups). Small companies are the lifeblood of the US economy, driving growth and providing new jobs to the workforce. It’s the allure of large, outsized returns by investing in the next Google, Facebook and Apple that is captivating investors right now. How stock market investors evolve to...

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What we’re investing in: Current investment opportunities on OurCrowd (Sep.-Oct. 2014)

What we’re investing in: Current investment opportunities on OurCrowd (Sep.-Oct. 2014)

Sep 30, 2014 | , ,

Over the course of the past two years, OurCrowd along with our community of 5,000 investors have invested $65 million in our 50 portfolio companies. This unprecedented access to early stage investments has made startups an investable asset that is now being included in investor portfolios, just like stocks and bonds. In order to give you a little preview of all the excitement happening on the OurCrowd platform, we’ve decided to publish a monthly digest of our currently funding companies. (To become an OurCrowd member, join us free of charge.) Without further ado, here are the most recent funding OurCrowd companies: Clipfort – Securing firearms with biometric authentication Clipfort developed a patented gun magazine that requires the owner’s unique fingerprint to unlock and fire the weapon. Global gun violence has been on a steady rise over the past few years and is responsible for 85 deaths on average per day in the United States alone. Nearly 18 thousand of these victims are children and teenagers who had unwarranted access to guns. To solve this crisis, current solutions require gun owners...

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IPOs: How they work and what they mean for your portfolio

IPOs: How they work and what they mean for your portfolio

Sep 24, 2014 | , ,

In our ‘Teach-In Tuesdays’ webinar series, we explore investing in early-stage Israeli companies, identify and explain influential tech trends, stay up-to-date with the crowdfunding industry, and examine actionable insights from our own experience running OurCrowd’s investment platform. This past Tuesday, OurCrowd hosted a special edition of our ‘Teach-In Tuesdays’ webinar series, in light of the recent ReWalk IPO. ReWalk, the first OurCrowd portfolio company to achieve an exit, recently went public on the NASDAQ (RWLK) prompting a lot of questions from our investor community. Join OurCrowd partner Elan Zivotofsky to learn more about the IPO process and how early stage investors profit from this type of exit. To stay updated on future events and the best news from the Startup Nation, sign up for our newsletter, email us, and follow us on social media. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: View the FULL program Download/view the presentation To stay updated on future events and the best news from the Startup Nation, sign up for our newsletter, email us, and follow us on social...

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This Week In Crowdfunding: How Neil Young raised millions via crowdfunding (and how you can, too)

This Week In Crowdfunding: How Neil Young raised millions via crowdfunding (and how you can, too)

Sep 14, 2014 | , ,

This Week in Crowdfunding is a newly launched podcast series hosted by OurCrowd’s Zack Miller and David Stark, where they cover the best in Crowdfunding with a frank — and educational — discussion about the issues surrounding Crowdfunding. Every week, they interview successful entrepreneurs, deconstruct campaigns, and hear from the smartest people around on this transformative, massive financing trend. Sign up to listen to the podcast on iTunes * Sticher * SoundCloud!  ——————————————— Neil Young may be a great rock and roller but he’s an even better crowdfunder. Young ran a rewards crowdfunding campaign that raised millions of dollars for his new music player, Pono Music. Young didn’t stop there — he went on to raise an equity crowdfunding campaign that was even more successful. What’s Mr Cinnamon Girl’s secret sauce? On this week’s TWiC, hosts Zack Miller and David Stark invited Rose Spinelli, of TheCrowdfundamentals fame and crowdfunding coach and teacher, on to the show to deconstruct Neil Young’s approach, what he did right/wrong, and what we can learn from his success. In a first on TWiC, Rose offers a challenge to you listeners: if you’re willing to take the plunge and launch a...

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