- Leading equity crowdfunding platform StartEngine Crowdfunding announced it is partnering with “Shark Tank” investor and entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary
Leading equity crowdfunding platform StartEngine Crowdfunding announced it is partnering with “Shark Tank” investor and entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary. O’Leary is joining StartEngine as a strategic advisor to ensure startups and entrepreneurs are aware of the benefits of equity crowdfunding for raising capital during a time when access to funding is becoming more challenging for early-stage companies.
Along with encouraging his own portfolio companies to raise funding through StartEngine, O’Leary will also give advice to StartEngine’s entrepreneur community and help spread StartEngine’s brand to his own community and followers. And as the largest equity crowdfunding platform in the U.S., StartEngine brings startup investment opportunities to the crowd by allowing everyday people to buy shares and invest in early-stage companies and startups.
StartEngine enables entrepreneurs and small businesses to raise capital directly from their own customers as well as from the growing StartEngine community of more than 235,000 investors. Plus the platform has already helped hundreds of businesses raise over $135 million.
The partnership with O’Leary comes on the heels of StartEngine raising an $8 million funding round on March 11th on StartEngine’s own platform. To date, StartEngine raised over $18 million and has over 9,000 shareholders on its cap table.
StartEngine was among the first equity crowdfunding platforms to launch in the U.S. in 2015 after the implementation of the JOBS Act — which was signed into law in 2012. Before the JOBS Act and the launch of StartEngine, most Americans could not invest in early-stage private companies in this format. Only 5% of the population — those known as “accredited investors” who earn over $200,000 annually or have over $1 million in assets — could previously make equity investments in private companies.
Key Quotes:
“With the coronavirus pandemic causing economic uncertainty, startups and small businesses are having an incredibly hard time accessing capital, so you’re going to see a material increase in interest in crowdfunding companies like StartEngine that are solving that problem. We’re going to look back on this period as the start of the rise of equity crowdfunding, and I think it’s an industry that StartEngine is going to win.”
-Kevin O’Leary
“We saw huge growth in crowdfunding during the last economic downturn when entrepreneurs needed to find alternative capital sources. We are similarly ready to provide a funding solution now, in what is shaping up to be another challenging period. With the high level of uncertainty, we’ve already seen venture capital and angel funding slow significantly. The opposite is true on StartEngine — we’re seeing tremendous interest from everyday investors in the opportunities on our platform. Crowdfunding is unique in its ability to find large numbers of shareholders that are aligned with a company’s mission and goals and are not on compressed timetables — a problem that currently plagues the traditional private equity and venture financial services industry.”
-StartEngine CEO and Activision co-founder Howard Marks
