TheCrowdCafe Weekly: Own Your Neighborhood | Slate

Aloha! Hope you all had a fantastic week. Here’s our curated summary of this week’s happenings in the crowdfund investing ecosystem. Give me a shout at [email protected] if you have any questions or updates!

• Own Your Neighborhood | Slate I disagree with the conclusion, but the author turns a very discerning eye towards retail crowdinvesting. Well worth the read.
• 22 Crowdfunding Sites (and How To Choose Yours!) | Inc Magazine Cool diagram of the crowdinvesting market. It does a great job of conveying the market’s diversity—but I wouldn’t base a decision on it. The market isn’t nearly this linear. (And I suspect many platforms would challenge how they’ve been classified.)
• In The Crowdfunding Gold Rush, This Company Has A Rare Edge | Forbes Deep dive, with lots of great stats, on accredited CF platform, MicroInvest. Highlights: $16 million raised to date; 34 companies funded; Avg. raise ~$470k; minimum investment size is $3k; Microinvest takes 10% transaction fee (5% from business, 5% from investor) + 10% carry (unsure how the carry is structured).
• Civic Crowdfunding: A Proposal | Twin Tangibles A global overview of civic crowdfunding, full of case studies and ideas. Make sure to check it out if you’re interested in civic crowdfunding.
• Crowdinvesting: Businesses temp customers to be investors | BBC News
• Solar crowdfunding pushes way beyond the social network | PV Tech
• Peer-to-peer lending: Bypassing the banks | FT Adviser
• Don’t Count out the Crowd Yet | Crowdsourcing.org
• Kickstarter’s Rising Competition: Crowdfunding Alternatives to Donation- Based Sites | Entreprenuer
• Why is the U.S. So Behind On Crowdfunding Startups? | Policymic

• SoFi gets an additional $41M to keep students from falling into debt (P2P) 
• GoFundMe Shells Out About $170,000 for Crowdfunding.com Address
• EFactor Corporation Provides Business Update
• Crowdfunding Film Festival Invites Aspiring Filmmakers
• EarlyShares.com, Inc. Partners with National Holdings Corporation to Offer Expanded Regulation D Offerings Platform
• Seed&Spark Launches $30,000 Crowdfunding Campaign (for Seed&Spark)
• I-Bankers Direct Expands Presence in EU Market

• Dealstruck:Lending Marketplace for Business Seeking Expansion Capital
• Crowdit: New platform combining investment with mentoring

• Crowdcube announces 500% increase in funding for UK start-ups 
• Israel’s OurCrowd Appoints Evelyn Rubin and Danna Mann as Partners