Author: John Notorgiacomo

Repeating History? The fintech industry has been growing in waves but things seem to be coming full circle. While at first they seemed to offer change, the margin of difference seems to be shrinking. The first wave was disruption. Fintech came in an offered an alternative to traditional banking. Things got cheaper and more collaborative, but they didn’t change things all together. The banks are still here, still functioning as they were before, mostly. However, the fintech startups did manage to make the banking institutions take notice. In the next wave, the startups that survived really brought the collaborative aspect…

At the end of one year and the beginning of the next, it’s important to look back at how the previous year went, as well as to look at some major events that occurred during that time. The industry certainly made a lot of progress in 2016, with the Jobs Act being updated and the Fix Crowdfunding Act being drafted. U.S. Legislation aside, we’re going to review the top 5 biggest events to happen in the industry in 2016 and talk a little about their implications. Renaud Laplanche resigned as CEO from Lending Club Both surprising and disappointing, we were…

With all the excitement and controversy going on about the election, it becomes necessary to do your own research. Today, we’re going to look past all the “he said, she said, he did this and she did that” to try to find something meaningful to us as responsible voters. Having created that goal, we want to look at where both main party candidates stand on the issues of Crowdfunding and P2P regulations. Our first stop was the home domains for the respective candidates’ policies: Donald Trump’s site and Hillary Clinton’s site. After browsing through prospective categories that our two keywords…

While Crowdfunding legislation may have only just come to fruition in May, there are already reworks and adjustments on the way. That being said, the question of whether or not to get in the game comes to mind. To answer that, one must first look at the rules and regulations currently in place versus what’s coming in the imminent future. So, let’s figure out whether to hold, fold or go all in! The current crowdfunding set up is new; it’s shiny, it’s financially progressive and it’s ready to be used! Or is it? At the moment, I would beg to…

As many of you may or may not know, the Fix Crowdfunding Act just passed through the House and is now moving on to the Senate. This may seem strange considering Title III crowdfunding revisions were just made active in May, but, if you know anything about the nuances of crowdfunding, you know it can still be improved. Today, let’s look at what the Fix Crowdfunding Act looks to correct. The Fix Crowdfunding Act will be making amendments to the Securities Act of 1933 and of 1934, as well as the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, both of which greatly…

As it stands now, Equity Crowdfunding is a bit of a paradox. Investing is always seen as a risk-reward situation, wherein you do your best to minimize the risk while maximizing the rewards through efforts like due diligence. However, because crowdfunding is the opposite of traditional funding, wherein a few number of backers supply a large percentage of the funding, it becomes inefficient and costly to perform due diligence checks, effectively gimping the asset class from being recognizing its full worth. So, let’s look at some areas we can look to optimize so that we can reduce the paradoxical nature…

We’ve long since touted the changes coming for Title III and the Crowdfunding industry and, while the industry is seeing progress, there have been those who criticize the current set up. Seedrs CEO, Jeff Lynn went so far as to call it unworkable. Today we will go over what the T3-naysayers are complaining about in regards to the updates to this important part of the Jobs Act. The current issues can essentially be summed up with the phrase, “high risk, lower chances of reward.” In it’s current iteration, Title III places a heavy burden on the companies seeking to raise…

Last week we went over the different Titles in the Jobs Act and their effects on the crowdfunding industry; this week we are going to have a more macro-view of the progress made in legislation for the industry. The Jobs Act was enacted April 5, 2012:  Or really, after four years of regulations and implementations, the SEC is finally done creating new rules for the Jobs Act. So today, we’re just going to go over the final iteration of what is one of the, if not the most, important pieces of legislation to the crowdfunding industry as a whole. To date,…

Those who have read this blog before have certainly heard of Title III of the Jobs Act. The revolutionary changes made within the past year were covered extensively by anyone and everyone interested in Crowdfunding.  Being that we have touted the positives, and even criticized some of the short comings, of the recent changes there and back again, it’s relevant to point out that there are two other important Titles of the Jobs Act that allow us to Crowdfund as we know and love today: Title II and Title IV. Title II allows investors to get in on deals that…

Does anyone remember this article by David Drake from about a year ago? In it, he named the top 80 real estate crowdfunding platforms in the US and listed Fundrise, RealtyMogul, and iFunding as “The Big 3” to look out for. I can agree with RealtyMogul, without a doubt; iFunding, I don’t really hear much about, but the one I disagree with is Fundrise. Fundrise, while often considered an online, real estate crowdfunding portal, is really more of an REIT; they even advertise as “Fundrise Income eREIT”. Now, I see where the idea of crowdfunding is coming in; they do…