Following LeapRate’s announcement of the imminent launch of social investing platform Seed Equity Ventures, the company, founded by founder of North American FX giant Interbank FX, today represents the company’s first day in business.
Seed Equity Ventures is a U.S. registered Broker-dealer and online equity-based investing platform for Startups, and has today opened its equity-based crowdfunding platform to a global audience of investors and startups.
Founder Todd Crosland previously started and sold Interbank FX. Seed Equity’s CTO is a Stanford Computer Science graduate who earlier worked on the team developing Addepar’s financial product
The company’s initiative is to take its equity investment network to a global audience of investors and startups, and is registered as a broker-dealer with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as well as being a member of FINRA and SIPC.
According to Seed Equity, the firm is a crowd-funding platform allows entrepreneurs to share information, pursue due diligence processes, apply for funding, and close investment agreements. Investors receive necessary accreditation after which they look for and vet online, investment opportunities
Seed Equity already spans the US, Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Egypt, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Honduras, Cyprus, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Turkey and United Kingdom. The company is preparing to open an office in Tel Aviv, a city which has become world renowned for creating vast numbers of successful, venture capital funded startups.
According to reports, US investors invested $200 million into startups using equity investment crowd-funding campaigns in 2013. On this basis, Seed Equity Ventures, LLC (Seed Equity) announces the launch of its U.S. Registered Broker-dealer and proprietary equity-based crowdfunding platform, built to connect investors with entrepreneurs and startups across the globe.
The platform allows entrepreneurs to share information about their startup, carry out due diligence processes, apply for funding, and close formal international investment agreements with multiple investors.
Investors receive the necessary registrations and accreditations, after which they can become mentors or thought leaders for specific industries and keep their eyes on potential investment possibilities around the world.
Seed Equity’s launch comes at a time when the startup market is expanding geographically and investment is being diversified through crowd-funding initiatives.
“Countries like Israel and Chile have actively been supporting their own startup ecosystems through grants and tax breaks which has spurred a boom of promising startups across the globe,” said Seed Equity Ventures founder and CEO Todd Crosland.
However, hundreds of foreign entrepreneurs continue to move their startups to the US to improve their access to investors who continue to invest mostly in local technology hubs such as San Francisco and New York City.
“This is why we are seeing an increase in equity investment crowd-funding that allow promising foreign entrepreneurs to seek their investments at home,” Crosland adds.
According to recent research, US investors invested $200 million into startups using equity investment crowd-funding campaigns in 2013. Multiple analysts estimate that this amount is likely to at least double this year.
“This trend to seek investment through crowd-funding is much more prevalent abroad, especially in developing tech hubs where the geographical and psychological barriers between the entrepreneur and potential US investors long impeded local startups to push through,” said Crosland.
“Seed Equity was founded to provide growth equity to entrepreneurs whether they are located in San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Bangalore, London, or Shanghai. The company’s mission is to help find the best and brightest entrepreneurs and connect them with global institutional and individual investors,” continued Mr. Crosland.
The platform “provides investors with greater interaction and transparency with their potential investments. We believe our technology will help assist the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ in the vetting and investing process,” says the founder.
Mr. Crosland has stressed that his company provides “one of the first global equity based, social investing platforms that connects startups and growth companies with institutional and individual investors from around the world,” adding that the focus of many prior funding services has been on the US market only.
In order to create the company necessary to make the platform work, Seed Equity Ventures is working with Stanford Computer Science graduate Clifton Crosland and a number of leading members of the team that helped grow Interbank FX, a company founded by Crosland in 2001 and sold in 2011. Interbank FX is a Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer, registered with the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission, a member of the National Futures Association and authorized and regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.