Collaborative or decentralized models of finance and investing, including equity crowdfunding, reward crowdfunding, crowd currencies, peer-to-peer lending and peer-to-peer commerce.
Crowdsourcing is being used more frequently in many business, industrial, governmental and social sectors to allow people to contribute opinions, knowledge and expertise. Crowdsourced urban planning and design is no exception. There are growing challenges to overcome...
The cryptocurrency landscape is undergoing a fundamental transformation. More users are shifting away from centralized exchanges and embracing self-custody crypto, a model that grants them full control over their digital assets. This shift is driven by concerns over...
What are DePINs? DePINs leverage blockchain-based distributed ledger technology (DLT) to create decentralised, transparent, and tamper-proof systems for managing physical assets. They sit at the convergence of crowdsourcing, the gig economy, AI, and Web3 which is...
The benefits of equity crowdfunding for privately-owned businesses that want to raise money is only one side of the coin. For this alternative source of finance to work there have to be sufficient benefits for the everyday retail investors who risk their money by...
James Watt is the co-founder and former CEO of the BrewDog craft beer company. From the outset, he stressed he would not rely on advertising in the manner of established “boring” beer and lager brands, and set out to crowdsource media coverage through a series of...
Australian journalist and founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is at last a free man. But at what cost? Seven years of living in a converted office in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, UK, and more than five years spent in the high security Belmarsh Prison in south...
Predicting which startups will succeed is inherently difficult. There have been studies showing AI models trained on vast datasets achieving up to 90% accuracy in predicting startup success. This suggests AI can be a valuable tool for equity crowdfunding investors....
Before looking into ways that creating a successful crowdfunding project can be automated, it is probably best to identify what the key elements of a crowdfunding project are. Traditionally, financing a business, project or venture involved asking a few people for...
Real estate crowdfunding offers a chance for retail investors to be involved in the property market without the hefty upfront costs of buying a whole building, and then without the requirement to maintain any part of a building. Real estate investments can be made...
With the current value of Bitcoin sitting above $60,000 (up 228% on its closing price 12 months ago on May 11 2023), there are increasing signs of its wider acceptance, easier ways to buy and sell it, and a growing ecosystem for people to actively use it rather than...
Equity crowdfunding is an alternative business finance model that began in the UK with the platforms Crowdcube and Seedrs (rebranded in July 2024 as Republic Europe). Economies were reeling after the 2007-9 global financial crash, and banks had much less inclination...
Crowdfunding has become a popular way for artists to raise funds for their creative projects, bypassing traditional galleries and patrons. A more recent development has been the opportunities for everyday retail investors to include part-ownership, also referred to as...
Buying shares in privately-owned businesses is a risky and a relatively illiquid investment. Early critics of equity crowdfunding as an alternative source of early-stage business funding were keen to point out the long time scales that investors in startups would have...
The term Web3 refers to the next generation of the internet, where applications are built on top of blockchain networks and smart contracts. Greater introduction of blockchain technology in the Web3 equity crowdfunding model has the potential to make a significant...
Equity crowdfunding is an alternative finance model that leverages the power of the internet for owners of privately-owned businesses to raise funding by offering shares. At the same time, it allows private investors to buy equity in businesses that they believe are...
The crowdfunding platform GoFundMe recently announced it had broken the $30 billion barrier for the total amount of money people have raised on it. We are all quite aware of the multitude of individuals who have asked for donations to help pay medical bills, education...
A crowdfunding campaign looks well on the way to reaching its target of AU$140,000 of donations to fund the post-production (editing) of a film. The film in question is a documentary called “Free The Truth: Free Assange.” Its purpose is to raise public support to...
Predicting crowdfunding success is a rapidly evolving field, and analysis of big data from various sources is becoming increasingly powerful for this purpose. An academic study concluded that the success of crowdfunding projects can be predicted by measuring and...
What can explain why crowdfunding works? Reward-based crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are wildly popular around the globe. Every year, consumers use these platforms to transfer billions of dollars to help entrepreneurs and artists develop market...
Crowdsourcing is a powerful tool to help humanize a brand, which enables a better customer experience. By involving audiences in a range of business processes and initiatives it’s possible to build a sense of community, foster a more personal connection, and boost...
Reward-based crowdfunding platforms led by Kickstarter and Indiegogo have revolutionized the way entrepreneurs and innovators bring their ideas to life. Although both platforms began as platforms based on raising finance for arts projects, they soon expanded to...
Crowdsourcing has been growing in popularity over the past few years as a way to harness the collective intelligence of large groups of people to solve complex problems or perform tasks that would be difficult or expensive to accomplish with traditional methods....
Bitcoin allows anyone to transfer value without needing a trusted intermediary or depository. It contains an advanced scripting system that allows users to program instructions for funds. However, as the number of Bitcoin transactions has grown, some drawbacks to...
NFTs are unique and indivisible digital assets, making them ideal for representing one-of-a-kind items such as art, music, and collectibles. Whilst each NFT is unique, an NFT can also verify part-ownership of an item or asset. Company stocks and shares, and real...