EVERYONE would like a piece of the next Google or Facebook. But the big venture-capital (VC) firms do not usually raise money from small investors. And some entrepreneurs complain that it is hard to get noticed by the hotshots in the VC industry. Hence the enthusiasm for crowd-funding, where small investors can buy a stake in startup companies.
Seedrs, a British crowd-funding firm, was set up in 2012, and has backed 500 firms so far, raising a total of £210m ($271m) from more than 200,000 users. But there are two big problems with crowd-funding. First, it is risky: most startups fail. Second, investments tend to be illiquid—shareholders have to wait for a takeover or a stockmarket flotation to recoup their investment.
Seedrs is trying to solve the illiquidity problem by setting up a secondary market, where buyers and sellers can exchange shares. The new market will start operating this summer, and will allow trading for a week every month, starting on the first...Continue reading
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