New Zealand rewards crowdfunding platform Pledgeme will be branching out into equity crowdfunding as well from next month when new P2P regulations go into effect allowing companies to raise up to $2 million a year this way.
Founder Anna Guenther, who wrote her master’s thesis on crowdfunding, says they’ve been watching and waiting for two years.
“It moves investment from just a strategic play for the angel investors, venture capitalists and ballers of this world. With the crowd now deciding what’s worth investing in, we’re going to see those ivory tower barriers turn into bridges. Smaller ventures, which previously may have been overlooked by investors will now get the support of their networks – which might grow into towering support of its own,” she wrote on the Pledgeme blog.
Pledgeme is on its way to hitting the $3 million mark; in 2013 it passed $2 million, enabling more than 300 projects to hit their funding goals.
Read more – The ultimate guide to crowdfunding in New Zealand
Meanwhile, Snowball Effect – an equity crowdfunding site dreamed up by a group of Fonterra managers – is also on track to go live next month and has partnered with the founders of Backable, another similar venture.
They’ve been busy behind the scenes, in discussions with various individuals and businesses and working with the Icehouse.
Backable co-founder J’aime Laurenson said they shared the same vision and it made commercial sense to work together.
Read more – Multitude wants to be your crowdfunding fairy godmother
