It has been a difficult quarter for Equity Crowdfunding. There were less deals but the crowd stuck at home during lockdown is responding to the situation and still actively investing in crowdfunding.
Etienne Paresys, commenting on the current state of the UK market which halved its volume from £112 million raised in Q2 2019 to £53 million in Q2 2020.
Quotes
"Systemic shifts require collective intent - something that is still scarce in business communities across the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly changed that, and has created the necessary conditions for collective intent. The human race is at a crossroads, and the choices we make now will define future generations and their way of life."
WEF
“People around the world are coming up with ideas on how to solve some of the problems and challenges we’ve faced in the last few weeks. For a lot of people, there’s a lot of time on their hands to do research, there’s a lot of thinking time. It is a perfect time to be doing that.”
Luke Lang, co-founder of equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, to CNBC
“The economy is not a machine that can be simply turned ‘on’ and ‘off’. It is a complex system, dependent on billions of relationships that are falling apart.”
The Entrepreneurs Network
The long-term objective that we have to face up to is this: we have to develop models of collective action that work with the globality of our situation.
Zygmunt Bauman
“The desire to get rich and create wealth will clearly not go away, nor should it. These findings do demonstrate that individual wealth creation is by no means the only driver for entrepreneurs. The new generation of entrepreneurs increasingly tend to be aspirational in other ways.”
Niels Bosma, Professor at Utrecht University School of Economics and Chair of the GEM’s Board of Directors
"The new stance of America’s most powerful CEOs is, of course, welcome. But we will have to wait and see whether it’s another publicity stunt, or whether they really mean what they say. In the meantime, we need legislative reform."
Joseph Stiglitz
Results from a study "showed that people with higher wealth were more responsive to financial arguments than moral ones. Prioritising returns is on the one hand what you’d expect from investors in general; at the same time, it’s not what you’d expect if participation in sustainable finance were driven by a charitable impulse."
Source: FT Alphaville
Every human activity produces both positive and negative impacts. Unless we measure and manage the negative along with the positive, we cannot be sure we are achieving our intended net societal and environmental benefits, nor can we take corrective action.
(Adam Bendell, CEO of Toniic on the FT on why Impact investing starts with good intentions, but it cannot end there)
“We see the equity crowdfunding industry changing at an incredible pace and we expect to discover, as a result of this study, an evolved reality vs. the one we unveiled with last year report.”
(Max Lyadvinsky, CEO of Bloomio, on the second edition of 'The State of Equity Crowdfunding Report' they are working on with the IMD Business School)
"Investment crowdfunding platforms are looking to scale by becoming broker-dealers (...). Some may offer other affiliated investment banking type services or secondary trading platforms. Digital assets issued via blockchain based platforms may streamline securities offerings, reducing both friction and cost. There is hope on the horizon." (Crowdfundinsider on Indiegogo exiting equity crowdfunding).
"Responsible investment now commands a sizable share of professionally managed assets in each region, ranging from 18% in Japan to 63% in Australia and New Zealand. Clearly, sustainable investing constitutes a major force across global financial markets." Meanwhile, tighter standards are holding Europe back. (GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT ASSETS WORTH $30 TRILLION)
"We started by issuing a Code of Conduct, then we made reporting standards mandatory for member platforms. Now, we are offering a third consumer protection tool. These three measures demonstrate how we go above and beyond legal requirements in terms of retail investors’ protection." ( Jamal El Mallouki, Chairman of the board of the German Crowdfunding Association on how they set the new "Transparency Seal", the first self regulatory scheme to protect retail investors within the European market for alternative finance)
"In the flat where I stayed in Cape Town last month, the bathtub felt like a relic of a lost civilisation. It may never be used again. Beside it was a shower containing an egg timer. The two-minute wash has been standard here since the recent three-year drought. In the city’s public bathrooms, a dribble comes out of the tap. Posters everywhere warn against wasting water. This is what adapting to climate change looks like." (FT Simon Kuper on life after climate change).
Seedrs' co-founder Jeff Lynn goes out of beta as the platform introduces AutoInvest, a new investment bot for early-stage private companies which constitutes equity crowdfunding’s first move into automation: "This is a very exciting release for us, and for me personally, as it represents the initial realisation of a vision we have had for quite some time."
"The UN and social entrepreneurs alike could tap into the market of global giving with a crowdfunding model modified for the SDGs, funnelling that money to help solve today’s toughest social problems." (Oxford University's Michele Scataglini on how to close the financing gap for SDGs)
"Since the financial crisis, in the absence of banks lending, crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending took off. That awakened an appetite in the public psyche to invest in things directly." (Bevis Watts on why crowdfunding has become a growing source of investment for social enterprises over the past decade)
"Crowdfunding surpassed bank finance to become entrepreneurs’ second-most favoured method of raising funds, behind venture capital, according to EY." (The Telegraph)
"We didn’t build the platform to focus on medical expenses, but we’ve become an indispensable institution for anyone who finds themselves needing help because there just isn’t adequate coverage or assistance.The reality is that access to health care is connected to the ability to pay for it. The health care system in the United States is really broken." (Rob Solomon, GoFundMe CEO)
"If even a relatively small proportion of global private equity funding is dedicated to contributing towards the U.N. SDGs, it could significantly contribute to closing the funding gap." (Gordon Brown)
