Below is an article by Crowdfunding Website Reviews entitled "Top 5 Crowdfunding Sites to Watch in 2013". The article lists EquityNet as one of the top 5 crowdfunding sites to keep an eye on.
Top 5 Crowdfunding Sites to Watch in 2013
By: Howard Orloff, Crowdfunding Website Reviews Founder
December 20, 2012
The year 2013 may go down in the books as the year of a financial revolution that changed the world of investing in small business forever.
The federal JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act and crowdfunding are allowing small businesses to side step the expensive and time consuming process of working through investment lawyers and investment banks to create an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Small businesses expect to generate more capital that goes direct into the business and small investors will finally have the chance to buy IPO stock at actual IPO prices.
While small business IPOs going direct to the public is not new, it is spreading like a Colorado wildfire thanks to a handful of crowdfunding websites and a few crowfunding projects that caught the attention of mainstream media. This is getting a serious boost from JOBS.
The financial world is looking at equity crowdfunding to be the BIG thing in 2013 thanks to JOBS, which was signed into law in the spring of 2012. Writing for Forbes, Tanya Prive opened an article about crowdfunding and JOBS with the statement" In the spring of 2012, President Obama passed an act that will drastically alter the landscape of crowdfunding platforms." In other words, the new law makes it much easier for small businesses to raise capital and sell shares of their business via crowdfunding routes.
She further wrote: "Data from Massolution Research indicates that total funds via the reward and donation based crowdfunding are growing at a rate of 524 percent, where platforms raised almost $1.5 billion..." The number of websites with crowdfunding as part of the domain name or meta tags as, well, exploded. With so many websites out there, some will fail and some will succeed. A likely indicator of success is adherence to standards being set forth by the major crowdfunding sites and who runs the company. People with a background in business and finance are more likely to succeed than someone who is jumping on the crowdfunding train in hopes of making a quick buck. Some key sites to watch are listed below.
EquityNet (www.equitynet.com)
Widely considered the original equity crowdfunding platform in the digital age, EquityNet had raised $104 million as of mid-August 2012. The company was seven years old at that time.
Among other things, EquityNet is credited with a patented software system that streamlines a business planning process and provides an indicator of success. Company founder Judd Hollas wrote "A survey found that over 50 percent of the entrepreneurs who complete the EquityNet system succeed in raising capital. That's 10 times the industry average of 5 percent."
The company is partnered with a number of business-growth associations like the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds and National Business Incubation Association among others.
Founder Judd Hollas was announced as president and CEO on Jan. 1, 2009. Prior to founding EquityNet, he was a division manager for Underwriting and Progress Monitoring for Beta-Rubicon, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in technology assessment and business due diligence. As of 2009, he had 15 years of experience in investing.
CFWR gives EquityNet five stars for professionalism, ease of use, and customers service. It is ranked No. 2 overall on the CFWR website. The business plan software, which gives further evidence of a startup's chance of long term success is a major reason for the ranking. That software analysis, once completed, can be used anywhere.
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