Two Equity Crowdfunders Cross the $100m Mark

The world’s largest equity crowdfunders have pulled past the $100 million mark in cumulative funding.

The UK equity crowdfunding market may be world’s most advanced in terms of retail participation, regulation, government support, tax breaks and so on. But the various UK sites pale in comparison to the scale of the San Francisco-based AngelList and the Israeli platform OurCrowd. Each of these sites eclipsed $100m in cumulative funding late in 2014. For context, Britain’s largest platform by total volume is Crowdcube – which has channeled about £46m into the nation’s early stage businesses.

OurCrowd and AngelList more or less mimic the equity crowdfunding processes of the UK platforms – save for one crucial difference: all investors must be accredited. OurCrowd funds deals in full and from scratch by leveraging its substantial base of private investors. 2014 was of course the year in which twice equity crowdfunded ReWalk Robotics completed the industry’s first IPO – returning substantial profits to its OurCrowd investors.

 AngelList – à la SyndicateRoom in the UK – employs a form of Angel led funding. The platform uses a syndicate structure in which leading Angel investors are backed by fellow private investors in order to create large pools of funds with which to then fund startups. The combined syndicate itself comes under the name of a single owner – the lead Angel. This allows fundraisers to broaden their base of shareholders without the word getting out about just how many owners they have on-boarded.

Some stats about the two platforms:

• In 2014, $104 million was raised by 2,673 investors via AngelList Syndicates for 243 startups.
• The largest single AngelList deal stood at $2.8m.
• In the same year OurCrowd raised funds for 56 companies from 6,500 investors.
• The Israeli platform’s average investment amount from users was $25k.
• 67% of OurCrowd investors backed more than 1 company.

Towering statistics – and all without the involvement of retail investors. One can only imagine what might be possible if US/Israeli governments were as accommodating as their UK equivalents.