Investing in private companies online is a brand new experience for most investors.
Luckily, my co-founder, Andy Gordon, and I have been doing this for a while. And we know the established players in the space.
For now, we’re going to highlight the top three equity crowdfunding “portals” where you can find and make investments.
These portals are sites where you can invest in equity crowdfunding offerings. And the ones listed below are all companies we know. They charge reasonable fees, screen companies effectively and are all-around solid businesses.
Now, there are many other newer portals offering equity crowdfunding investments. However, we don’t recommend exploring them just yet. Once we’ve had time to vet them, we’ll let members know.
Even if you only plan on following our recommendations, not our whole process, it helps to know the different places to invest online. By checking the sites regularly and looking at the investment opportunities they offer, you can learn a lot about early-stage investing.
[Editor’s note: As a reminder, we don’t accept any form of compensation from these portals or the companies we recommend. Our research is 100% independent.]
Wefunder has taken the early lead in equity crowdfunding.
It hit the ground running on May 16, 2016 (the day early-stage equity crowdfunding launched), with 20 high-quality offerings within its first week. That’s more than everyone else combined so far.
I’ve known Mike Norman and Nick Tommarello from Wefunder for a few years. Andy and I visited their San Francisco office last time we were out there. They run a well-oiled machine with great connections in Silicon Valley, and they’ve been managing similar deals for around three years already, just for accredited investors.
The first deal on their platform was a startup called Zenefits, which went from being worth $9 million in 2013 to around $3.5 billion today!
Wefunder was also instrumental in getting the JOBS Act (which made this whole service possible) passed and signed into law.
Right now, it’s the best place for investors to start looking at deals. It’s got a large number of quality offerings and the lowest fees around (5% total). All the information is clear and easy to understand, and the deal terms are shown prominently.
It’s early on in this journey, but Wefunder has positioned itself well.
You can read more about the portal on Wefunder.com, check out its live deals here and watch the interview I did with Mike here.
New York-based SeedInvest has also been doing these types of deals for a while. But until recently, it’s only accepted accredited investors.
I’ve gotten to know the team there over the last two years. They’ve built an impressive platform and do a great job of screening startups. We’ve recommended a few of their featured companies to Startup Investor members already.
SeedInvest has a number of live early-stage deals. It also has a number of Regulation A+ listings. (As a reminder, Reg A+ offerings are larger deals of up to $50 million).
Republic is a spin-off from AngelList, which is a leading accredited investor portal. AngelList has some truly impressive deals, and some of its startups will opt to “top off” their rounds via the crowd on Republic.
For consumer startups, offering a small part of a round to non-accredited investors is a great option, offering more investors, champions, helpers, enthusiastic supporters and money. It also gives friends and family a way to invest.
AngelList should feed Republic a steady drip of quality deals as it builds its own brand. As of late June, Republic is not yet live. But it is positioned to have some of the best deal flow around.
Republic’s founder is Kendrick Nguyen, a former general counsel at AngelList. I’ve spoken on the phone with Kendrick a few times and came away impressed. This business is one to watch.
You can sign up for Republic here.
We’ll keep members updated as new equity crowdfunding portals come online. We expect quite a few big players to jump into the space soon, including a giant of traditional (i.e., rewards-based) crowdfunding, Indiegogo. With tens of millions of members and a vast network, it will bring more interesting deals to the table.