ING and Seedrs have announced a partnership that will combine traditional business loans and crowdfunding opportunities for new and growing businesses.

ING will become Seedrs’ equity partner in two European territories, meaning it will be able to fast track its small buiness and startups’ plans using the model. Seedrs also said the tie-up will help spread the word about equity corwdfunding thoughout Europe.

Although launching only in Belgium and Luxembourg at the moment, the idea is one that could be replicated in the UK too.

“For entrepreneurs who are driven by innovative ideas, a classic bank loan is not always the best or only solution,” Seedrs said in a blog post. “Both entrepreneurs and banks can benefit from a diversified funding combination. That’s why ING will now offer businesses that it believes can benefit from full or partial funding through Seedrs access to a fast track campaign review process.”

When companies apply for crowdfunding on Seedrs, they will be consulted by ING representatives who will be help them decide which is the best funding option for them. Then, they are able to use INGs fast-track system to submit their campaign and it will be assessed within two days by Seedrs.

Seedrs is planning to grow its business exponentially in Europe over the next few months and partnerships like this will enable it to become a powerful competitor in the equity crowdfunding space.

“We are very excited to be working together with ING in making equity crowdfunding more easily available to the Belgian business community,”Jeff Lynn, CEO of Seedrs said. “To our knowledge this is the first time that a well-respected, global financial institution like ING has partnered with a leading international equity crowdfunding platform like Seedrs, and we think this relationship is very encouraging for the future of business finance.”

He added the company is proud to have been chosen as ING’s partner for this venture and it’s proof that Seedrs’ model of equity crowdfunding doen right is succeeding throughout Europe.

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A new law announced to help US start-ups raise cash could have a knock-on effect on the equity crowdfunding scene in the country.

The legislation states that anyone – providing they have assets worth less than $1m and have earned more than $200,000 over the previous two years – can buy equity in start-up companies, bypassing the need for those companies to launch traditional equity-based or rewards-based crowdfunding campaigns.

It means anyone will now be able to invest in companies they believe in and they think will bring them reasonable returns, whether they are experienced investors or just want to have a go at alternative investments.

However, small companies are only able to raise up to $1m a year using this method, which may, of course, lead to some still using crowdfunding to raise a higher amount on funding. Additionally, it wll be closely monitored, with investors using specially set up marketplaces enabling them to support early-stage businesses.

“Raising money online remains a securities transaction, and you need to be responsible in how you sell your securities to investors,” Corporate and securities attorney Doug Ellenoff told Business News Daily.  “And they need to make sure they work with qualified professionals to do it in an informed way that won’t harm investors.”

“It’s a real revolutionary change in securities law. Consequently, the proposed rules that need to be fashioned by SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission)…are complex and not obvious,” Ellenoff added.

The US equity crowdfunding market is somewhat less mature than the UK equity crowdfunding scene, although that could be set to change with Seedrs setting its sights on launching in the country.

The incoming law is likely to come into force later this year and we’ll be monitoring it closely to see if and how it will impact the US crowdfunding industry.

Main image of US Securities and Exchange Commission source: Flickr

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Indiegogo has released guidelines about the inner workings of InDemand, explaining how companies wanting to use the feature can make the most of it.

We’re not sure whether Indiegogo was struggling to get many people using the feature, or they just didn’t think people were using it effectively, but the tips and tricks will prove useful for anyone

“When we first launched InDemand in September 2014, we wanted campaigners to be able to keep raising funds for their innovative ideas long after their campaigns ended,” the company explained.

“Because they’ve already found success and an engaged community on Indiegogo, the natural next step is for campaigners to continue raising funds for their campaigns even after the end date.”

InDemand means any campaign that reaches their goal can continue funding until the end date, giving more opportunity to raise more funds. Pretty kind of them, right?

It’s not just about money though – it means companies can keep drumming up support for their campaign and can grow their community and essentially, get more exposure for their company and their product.

If they like, companies funding on Indiegogo using an InDemand campaign can also add new perks if, for example, they launch new products or features.

Indiegogo suggested companies hoping to use InDemand should check out Bluesmart, Geek Pulse and Plexidrone to see how they can use InDemand to get more coverage and make their campaign even more of a success.

“It’s our hope that all campaigners continue to find success even after their campaigns are over. We built InDemand as a way for campaign owners to keep raising funds after the initial campaign ends, while continuing to maximize all their efforts they put into the original campaign,” Indiegogo said. “Whether you’re thinking about starting a campaign or already running one, choosing to opt-in to InDemand can be a great option for your dreams to live on long after the initial campaign ends.”

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An infographic created by Wolters Kluwer and CT Corporation has revealed the top characteristics of the most successful rewards-based crowdfunding campaigns over the last 12 months.

Technology raised the second most amount of money per campaign after charities, which gained an average of $5m per campaign, next to $4m for technology-led products and services.

However, fewer campaigns were run for charities, while the technology market was a little more popular, taking around 42 per cent of all crowdfunding campaigns vs four per cent that were charitable causes.

Wolters Kluwer and CT Corporation analysed the top 50 campaigns on rewards-based crowdfunding platforms to see how they managed to raise so much money and it uncovered three very obvious trends: incorporation, video and social media.

Incorporation

Nine out of ten of the most successful campaigns were launched by incorporated companies, which, to investors, would offer some protection for their investments and therefore peace of mind. Additionally, for the companies involved, incorporations have certain benefits, such as better loans, grants and contracts that mean they were in a better position to tout their wares on a crowdfunding platform, with extra security against losses themselves.

Video

Every single campaign included in Wolters Kluwer and CT Corporation’s list had a video accompanying their campaign. This adds a certain amount of professionalism, again, making the campaign seem more trustworthy. Whether portraying the company’s story or simply showcasing the product, it shows dedication from the company, demonstrating they are willing to invest time and money in creating effective assets to accompany their campaign.

Social Media

In total, the companies behind the 50 campaigns had 310,200 social media followers, which allowed them to drum up interest in their product. The key social networks the leaders were active on were Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Take a look at the full infographic below.

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Non-profit management platform NonProfitEasy has acquired Fundly to offer an entire platform for charities and other non-profit organisations and individuals to manage their campaigns and boost engagement with followers.

Previously, NonProfitEasy only controlled the technology back-end elements, including CRM and database management, events, donor engagement and fundraising, but this tie-up means it can also offer the crowdfunding infrastructure to make non-profit campaigns work even more effectively, drumming up interest from supporters outside its core market.

Fundly will continue to exist and all features will be offered as they are at the moment. NonProfitEasy will invest in both platforms to improve them and make them more integrated rather than standalone products. The main change is the rebranding of Non ProfitEasy’s services to fit under the Fundly umbrella, with NonProfitEasy CRM becoming Fundly CRM, VolunteerEasy transforming into Fundly Connect, and Ignite changing to Fundly Enterprise.

“The new Fundly will be the only platform on the market that offers crowdfunding, peer-to-peer fundraising, donor relationship management, membership management, event ticket and registration, and volunteer management as an affordable, integrated end-to-end solution,” said Lomesh Shah, CEO and founder of NonProfitEasy. “It has always been our vision to shake up the market by providing great technology in a modular platform that is affordable for any organization. We are on track to make that happen.”

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Board Game innovator Hasbro and crowdfunding platform Indiegogo have joined forces to find the next cult face-to-face party game.

The companies are inviting professional game designers as well as novices to come up with ideas for a completely new game that doesn’t depend on WiFi or mobile phone network to be enjoyable.

Although the first couple of rounds of the competition won’t include crowdfunding, once Hasbro has whittled down the finalists to five, it will run the campaigns on Indiegogo to find the overall winner.

The winner will take home $10,000 and will be invited to Hasbro HQ where they can develop the idea with the game manufacturer’s designers and developers to make the game a reality.

“More people are gaming than ever before and the category has grown tremendously with the emergence of a passionate and talented community of game designers,” said Brian Chapman, head of design and development at Hasbro. “We believe big game ideas can come from anywhere and the challenge with Indiegogo will be a new way for Hasbro to connect with the gaming community and discover a big new idea that we can hopefully help cultivate and bring to market.”

Those who want to take part have until September 30th to submit their initial ideas to Hasbro and the finalists will be announced a month later, when the campaigns will go live on Indiegogo. Both Hasbro and Indiegogo will be on hand to offer support to the finalists in order to make their campaigns as successful as possible.

The overall winner will be announced shortly after the campaigns complete on December 1st, promising a very happy Christmas for one lucky person.

“We’re very excited to see the growing trend of large companies leveraging Indiegogo’s global community of early adopters to source, validate and launch innovative customer-driven products faster and with less risk than ever before,” Jerry Needel, senior vice president of sales and market development at Indiegogo said. “By teaming up with Hasbro, we’re helping talented game developers get the global exposure and access they need to help turn their ideas into reality.”

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Entrepreneur magazine has released a list of the biggest crowdfunding trends of 2015 and we thought it would be a great opportunity to give our take on the trends.

Niche-specific Platforms

Although generic platforms like Indiegogo and Kickstarter may be dominating the crowdfunding scene because they have had a lot of publicity and make it easy for the general public to buy wacky products they would otherwise not even consider buying, new niche-specific platforms are starting to explode in popularity.

Whether focusing on the medical community, local projects or providing legal support like CrowdJustice, these platforms focusing on just one speciality are gaining momentum.

Specialists and Celeb Support

Specialist advisors and even celebrities in the case of Seedrs are becoming crowdfunding platforms’ newest recruits.

Advisors are able to help companies build pitches and even find backers if a company running a campaign is struggling. In fact, some individuals are going one step further and have built up a whole company of advisors to help out on the campaign trail.

Although recruiting Andy Murray may not have the same impact on a company’s actual campaign, it certainly attracted some attention to the crowdfunding platform.

Platform Investment

Just last week, two major UK crowdfunding platforms announced they had received funding from investors to further their business.

Seedrs announced it raised £10m, which will be used to boost its marketing efforts around the world, while Crowdcube announced its raised £6m.

It’s not just small companies or startups that need an extra boost from funding, but platforms need it too, in order to grow into new territories and to be able to offer a wider range of services.

Crowdfunding Before Investment

If a company is seeking VC investment, it’s likely they’ll try out a crowdfunding campaign first. Not because they particularly need the cash straight away, but because they need to prove to investors they are willing to go out and find an audience for their product.

Obviously, any capital they do raise will come in handy, but even failed crowdfunding campaigns have been known to go on and get significant capital from private investors once their product has been proven to have some interest.

Read Entrepreneur‘s take on the biggest crowdfunding trends of 2015.

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Crowdcube has raised an additional £6m, taking its total value up to £51m, the platform has announced.

The funds, contributed by stockbroker Numis, Tim Draper, his London-based VC firm Draper Esprit and existing backer Balderton Capital will allow Crowdcube to launch IPO investment opportunities so investors are able to back companies that are about to go public, rather than sticking to the startup and early-stage companies.

“We’re on a mission to help more businesses raise the finance they need to grow, create jobs and deliver returns to investors,” Darren Westlake, CEO and co-founder of Crowdcube said. “We’ve dominated the democratisation of seed-stage equity investment since we launched in 2011 and we’re determined to do the same for larger businesses. We want to put the Public back into IPO.”

Numis has extensive experience working with IPOs and will bring the expertise the crowdfunding platform needs to bring its plans into fruition. It will directly liaise with regulators to ensure high-growth businesses planning to go public are able to list shares on the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market or AIM for purchase by individuals.

Oliver Hemsley, CEO and founder of Numis said: “Numis has a long track record of helping companies access funding for growth and this investment in Crowdcube will put Numis at the centre of the entire investment chain, from initial start-up capital all the way to IPO.

“We are very excited to be part of an innovative fintech solution to help the public markets evolve and connect retail investors directly with fast growing businesses.”

Crowdcube will use the money to take on more staff, ramp up development of its site and expand its marketing spend to create awareness around both IPO investments and its existing bonds, funds and VC round business models.

Westlake added: “Our goal is to solve the funding continuum for ambitious, high growth businesses; delivering seed-capital right through to IPO. We have a proven track record of disrupting the status quo. With high calibre new investors joining the team who share our vision of widening companies’ access to capital, this new round of funding puts us in a very exciting position.”

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Seedrs has raised £10m funding to super-charge its marketing in the UK and around Europe, while also improving its crowdfunding platform. The company also hopes to launch into the US after acquiring Junction Investments late last year.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have Woodford and Augmentum leading this investment round in Seedrs,” Jeff Lynn, CEO and co-founder of Seedrs, said. “The capital we are raising will allow us to deliver our next stage of growth in the UK, Europe and the United States. As importantly, though, is the signal this investment sends to the market.”

Woodford and Augmentum contributed money towards the investment, but the opportunity doesn’t stop there, with Seedrs promising to use a quarter of the money to launch a new crowdfunding campaign for extra supporters to invest in the platform.

“The greatest fund manager of our time and the greatest financial family in history have looked at the equity crowdfunding space, decided that there is a huge opportunity to be won, and decided that Seedrs is the one that’s going to win it. We are honoured to have both investors on board, we look forward to working with them as we continue to grow.”

Tim Levene, managing partner at Augmentum Capital added: “We have been following the developments in equity crowdfunding for some time and believe Seedrs are the stand out company. The market is still early in its development with many challenges to overcome. However, we believe Seedrs have the right blend of talent, vision, experience and rigour to ensure they become the leader in this exciting space.”

Levene will join Seedrs as a director as part of the deal. The extra capital means Seedrs is now valued at £30m on a fully-diluted, post-money basis.

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The UK government has launched a consultation into how investors will be taxed on peer-to-peer lending, with closing comments released in September.

At the moment, the legislation regarding income tax paid on peer-to-peer investments is somewhat confused. Not only is it complicate for the borrower, the platform and the lender.

The consultation reads: “Comments are sought on the proposed changes to the obligations of peer-to-peer platforms and borrowers of peer-to-peer loans to deduct income tax at source from interest paid,” and recommends that peer-to-peer platforms, lenders of peer-to-peer loans, borrowers of peer-peer loans, representative bodies and tax professionals all read the report.

The government said it supports a more competitive financial sector, where new banks, P2P platforms and other forms of financing can have a chance of success against traditional loans platforms, such as high street and online banks.

However, it now wants to start charging income tax to investors at source on interest payments made from P2P loans, starting April 2017, rather than allowing individuals to be tax exempt and companies to pay tax via the P2P platform.

The current rules mean lenders will have to pay tax on some investments, but not others, making it even more complicated for all parties involved.

The proposals include allowing personal investors to take advantage of their Personal Savings Allowance (PSA), which is £1000 for basic rate taxpayers and up to £500 for higher rate taxpayers and it will apply to the status of the lender rather than the borrower.

“Broadly, income tax would be deducted at source if the lender was an individual, or was based overseas,” the proposal reads. “Under this approach the person responsible for deducting any tax from the payment will only have to keep track of the status of the lender, and will not have to consider the identity of the borrower for each loan part that the lender has invested in.”

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