francisco key people tyler gray cco ; paul o brien cmo services equity crowdfunding website microventures microventures is an equity crowdfunding website offering investments in early stage companies . microventures connects accredited investors with startups businesses and services looking to raise funds or participate in select secondary market opportunities . 1 2 3 it is the only major equity crowdfunding site that is a broker dealer registered by the financial industry regulatory authority finra 4 5 and the first to take a portfolio company to a successful exit . 6 7 8 as of october 2013 microventures had raised 20 million spread among 45 companies 9 including twitter facebook and yelp before they reached the public markets . 10 11 12 contents 1 history 1.1 founding 1.2 growth 2 services 2.1 company listing & due diligence 2.2 investors 2.3 broker dealer services 3 notable offerings 3.1 primary offerings 3.2 secondary offerings 4 see also 5 references history edit founding edit microventures was founded by bill clark in austin texas in 2009 . 13 prior to starting microventures clark worked as a credit risk manager with gmac finance paypal and dell financial services . 6 14 clark decided to found the company after witnessing the contraction in small business credit opportunities following the 2008 financial crisis . 15 microventures completed finra s application process in 2010 . 6 growth edit in august 2012 tim sullivan then president of sharespost an online marketplace for trading shares of private companies joined microventures as its ceo to help scale the company . 6 16 under sullivan deal volume rose to over 1 million per month by january 2013 17 and by september 2013 microventures had doubled in size and completed a successful round of fundraising on its own platform . 13 in march 2013 microventures worked with the launch festival to develop the first mobile crowdfunding app that would allow investors to show their interest in backing entrepreneurs at fundraising events . 4 5 18 19 the company plans to eventually offer real time investing in startups through mobile . 19 in february 2015 microventures introduced a 500 startups fund while announcing 25 000 global investors who have deployed over 60 million to approximately 100 companies by way of the microventures platform . 20 services edit company listing & due diligence edit microventures funds startups from different industries including technology consumer products and services healthcare media and entertainment and telecommunications . 14 microventures looks at prospective early stage companies using a variety of success criteria such as suitable risk likelihood of profitability and other key due diligence factors . 1 4 microventures accepts less than 0.5 % of companies who apply for listing on the platform . 13 if a company is selected for listing microventures then posts the results of their due diligence for investors to review . 4 21 22 the average company listed on microventures raises 250 000 ; outliers have raised over 1 million . 13 19 microventures takes a 10 % fee 5 % from the issuer and 5 % from investors from each successful raise plus 10 % carry . 13 if the full amount of an offering is not raised then all investor money is returned . 22 investors edit microventures accepts both accredited investors and sophisticated non accredited investors on its platform . 12 23 microventures speaks to every investor who signs up by phone to determine that they are accredited investors or meet suitability requirements . 13 microventures counts more than 10 000 accredited investors on the platform including a meaningful number of international investors . 13 the typical minimum investment is 5 000 . 6 broker dealer services edit as a finra registered broker dealer microventures may legally sell shares of companies on their own . 6 competing platforms require a third party middleman to sell shares . 6 19 notable offerings edit primary offerings edit microventures completed funding of its first three companies in april 2011 raising a total of 150 000 . 23 24 the first project was republic project a cloud based platform to help advertisers manage digital media campaigns . 6 in october 2013 republic project sold to digital generation for a total of 14.5 million . 8 the sale represented the first liquidity event or exit for investors in an equity crowdfunded company . 8 in april 2013 graphicly raised 300 000 on microventures . 25 overall graphicly has raised 1 million over two separate rounds on microventures . 6 secondary offerings edit in july 2011 microventures raised a 500 000 fund to invest in facebook through the purchase of private company shares on secondary markets . 11 12 in november 2011 microventures raised 100 000 for private shares of yelp at a price of 6 to 7 a share . 12 beginning in february 2012 and continuing through shortly before the company s ipo microventures offered shares of twitter on its platform . 10 the company saw demand in excess of 300 times the number of shares available . 10 see also edit jobs act references edit a b new peer to peer venture capital investing website launches in austin tx . calnan christopher . austin entrepreneur launches online investment matchmaking . austin business journal . shah semil . in the studio microventures tim sullivan crowdfunds retail angel investments in startups . techcrunch . a b c d microventures app to match startups and investors . business week . a b prepare to crowdfund at launch festival with a microventures sponsored mobile app . venture beat . a b c d e f g h i colao j.j. in the crowdfunding gold rush this company has a rare edge . forbes . weston julien . microventures marketplace gains first peer to peer finra license . vc vibe . a b c microventures brings first equity crowdfunded company to exit . thomas myra . online platforms connect tech firms & angel investors . dice . a b c panzarino matthew . twitter could price ipo well above new 23 25 range after strong private market interest . techcrunch . a b wauters robin . microventures raises 300 000 fund to invest in facebook on secondary markets . techcrunch . a b c d hawkins lori . austin based online investing firm microventures continues growth raises 150 000 for expansion . statesman . a b c d e f g sandlund jonathan . microventures snapshot startup crowdfunding platform . crowd cafe . a b hay timothy . new service aims to enable peer to peer early investing . the wall street journal . cite error invalid ref tag ; name wsj defined multiple times with different content see the help page . ankeny jason . venture funding one dollar at a time . entrepreneur . gage deborah . in management shake up sharespost exec departs for microventures . wall street journal . hoge patrick . startups battle to serve new investors . san francisco business times . tsukayama hayley . crowdfunding from your smartphone . washington post . a b c d kolodny lora . microventures mobile app to match startups and investors . wall street journal . microventures launches 500 startups fund . offers investors access to high profile incubator . crowdfund insider . interview with bill clark microventure marketplace . texas tech pulse . a b renton peter . my first p2p venture capital investment . lend academy . a b watters audrey . crowdfunding your startup with microventures . readwrite . warren michele . microventures funds first three deals . informationweek . morrill danielle . graphicly raises 300 000 using microventures p2p funding platform . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title microventures & oldid 649855806 categories crowdfunding platforms2010 introductionshidden categories pages with reference errorspages with duplicate reference names navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 4 march 2015 at 16 22 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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