CrowdfundNC Welcomes Sumit Vohra as an Advisor

By Will McGuire

Sumit Vohra, a very successful entrepreneur, advisor, board director, investor, and technologist joins CrowdfundNC's Advisory team and will be serving an active role in advising the startups and Main Street businesses we support.

Sumit Vohra

Sumit is the Founder, CEO & Chief Drinking Officer at Lonerider Brewing Company which is the largest custom brewery in the Triangle and operates in several states and the UK.  He also serves as Chairman of Lonerider Spirits.

Sumit is a Board Member for several companies and organizations, and mentors founders at startups in NC.  He is an avid technologist, with deep programming and technical program management experience.  He's also an incredible team builder and recognized leader working to generate long lasting impact on his community.  

See our About page for more information on Sumit's expertise.

We welcome Sumit to the CrowdfundNC team and look forward to his valuable advice and experience as together we serve entrepreneurs and investors in our community.

What We Can Learn From These Interesting Investment Crowdfunding Campaigns on Localstake

By Will McGuire

We often get the question "Can you show me some examples of how investment crowdfunding works?" And we always advise potential crowdfunders to take a look at campaigns that are already up and running and are getting funded to see what works well.

About Will McGuire

Here are a couple of interesting investment crowdfunding campaigns that are currently running on the Localstake platform. The first one is a distillery called Ogdens Own. See the campaign here:
https://localstake.com/businesses/ogdens-own/preview

This company has received commitments of $2M from investors, surpassing their max goal of $1.9M. In this case, they are selling equity in their company, and using a crowdfunding exemption that allows anyone to invest as well as an exemption which only allows accredited investors.  They compiled an excellent profile and story on Localstake, and used a great marketing campaign to explain why their community would want to invest in the business. As a result, they have received many investments from their loyal customer base and community.

The second one is for a real estate cooperative in Michigan called Commongrounds Cooperative. You can see the campaign here:
https://localstake.com/businesses/commongrounds-cooperative-cf/preview

This is another example of appealing to the community for funding of a new venture. In this case, the community will benefit from having a cooperative real estate venture where small businesses can rent space, and also participate in the value generated by the cooperative over time. This raise additionally provides the investor with the ability to opt for a full rate of return on their investment or for them to choose to split their investment returns and allowing the cooperative board to direct these returns to areas of social impact in the community and the building

There is a lot to learn from both of these campaigns, and these are just two examples of the many types of investment crowdfunding campaigns that are successfully raising money all over the country. Contact me at hello@crowdfundnc.com to see if the investment crowdfunding opportunity may be right for you.

This message is not meant to imply directly or indirectly for any individual to take a position in any investment mentioned.  Nor is it meant to be guidance or advice on how to structure an investment offering for any company.  It's meant only for educational purposes so readers can observe what other companies are doing.

CrowdfundNC welcomes Jeff Dayton as an Advisor

Jeff Dayton, seasoned senior executive, board director, board advisor, Angel Investor and leader, joins CrowdfundNC's Advisory team.

Jeff Dayton

Jeff is an accomplished executive in Fortune 500 corporations and startup ventures.   His 30 years of experience include CEO, CTO, and board roles.   He loves finance, deal making, and corporate strategy.    He has a reputation for trust, leadership, knowledge, and teamwork.     

Currently Jeff is CEO of Alpha Funders, a top venture advisory and deal syndication firm.    Previously Jeff has held corporate positions including CTO of Liberty Mutual, Home Depot, and Belk.  In the high-tech space, he has held positions including President of Softbase, Director at BMC, and private equity executive at VSPAN and GlobalSpec.    

Jeff is an advisor to Airing (medtech) and Initial State (IoT).  He is an angel investor in Virtuix, Trusted Insight, late stage Biothera (cancer biotech) and numerous startups.

See our About page for more information on Jeff's expertise.

We welcome Jeff to the team and look forward to his valuable advice and experience as together we serve entrepreneurs, investors, and others in our community.

Congratulations North Carolina!

By Will McGuire

NC IDEA Awards 5 Crowdfunding Grants to North Carolina startups. This is a major milestone for these companies, North Carolina and our community at large.

About Will McGuire

At CrowdfundNC, we aim to grow North Carolina's entrepreneurial ecosystem by democratizing access to capital for all businesses providing new economic opportunities for all. We do this by providing education and services enabling North Carolina startups and existing businesses to get funded using a variety of online private and public offering strategies including investment crowdfunding.

We're proud of these startups and wish them the best on their potential success.

Are VCs needed anymore?

Imagine a world where hundreds if not thousands of people pool as little as $10 each together to invest in startups...

By Will McGuire

Crowdfund Insider just launched an interesting article saying Farewell to Venture Capital at least in the traditional sense where a few determine whether a startup adds value to the masses.  I think there is a space for everyone to play in this amazing disruption occurring with startups and business funding.

About Will McGuire

So are VCs needed anymore? Yes, they are, but because of the new types of exemptions which enable investment crowdfunding, now everyone can participate in startup investing, not just wealthy accredited investors and VCs.

Diversification Strategies of the Wealthy for Everyone

As a middle class American family, my wife and I have diversified our assets using investment crowdfunding since 2016.  We've teamed up with hundreds of investors to participate in $100K rounds to $7MM rounds for startups who are killing it with B2C products, generating new TV series & movies, creating disruptive AgTech, Medical Tech, Fintech, and more.

The reason my family is moving back to our home state is that we want to champion the services that are providing these new economic opportunities to ALL by unlocking the resources of individuals for entrepreneurs.

Everyone can participate...everyone has some value to give and potentially some amazing reward to receive.  Imagine if you had the opportunity to invest in Pendo or Uber or <insert your favorite company> when they were just getting started at $10M, $5M or even $2M valuations.  How would that return impact your family?

Investment crowdfunding also allows individuals to invest in small businesses such as <insert your favorite local coffee shop, restaurant, you name it> and receive a share of the revenue.

Benefit to Startups

Imagine the impact on a startup, when instead of having a few validate their service or product, they have a crowd of hundreds or thousands who not only become their beta product and services testers, but they are economically incentivized by the nature of their investment of $10, $100, $500, $1000, <name your amount> to unlock their connections for startups.  David's on point when he says "All fundraising is the SLOW conversion of your SOCIAL capital into FINANCIAL capital."  Increasing the size of your dedicated social crowd seems to statistically lean in a favorable direction.

Investment crowdfunding allows an unprecedented opportunity for startups and small businesses to pivot their marketing and branding strategies quickly which could be the difference between bankruptcy or success.

It also allows them to connect with individuals who may have a specialty that can help accelerate their growth.  Would they have found this specialty using a traditional VC?...perhaps, but organized diversification provides new opportunities not seen before for startups.

Benefit to Traditional Angels and VCs

Technology is transforming "Traditional" Angels and VCs to "Virtual" Angel and VC Groups.

It is incredibly powerful to be able to aggregate everything needed to make a decision on whether to fund a company through closing the deal all from your preferred device by accessing a single website.

From sourcing deal flow, to vetting and qualifying deals, to finding capital, to having the offering materials automatically generated all in one place, we've only just begun to see the efficiency gains of leveraging online syndicates for investing.

Beyond the $

Everyone should have the opportunity to take the risk of investing in startups to reap the potential reward of freedom the results can provide.  While these financial rewards can be game changing for an individual or a family, it doesn't stop there.  The relationships I've developed with many of the founders I've met (whether I've invested in them or not) go way beyond the $ nature of the investment or the introduction I've made for them.  I like helping value creators...those solving some of our biggest problems of our generation and have had the pleasure of calling several of them my friends.

I look forward to serving all of the value creators and those new to investing out there!  Let me know how I can help. You can reach me at will@crowdfundnc.com.