Mahi Sall, Advisor, Fintech-Bank Partnerships, Payments and Financial Inclusivity
January 25th, 2023
Crowdfund Insider | Andrew Dix | May 30, 2019
Backing a startup or scale up entails shouldering more risk than buying shares in company that went public many moons ago. But along with this additional risk comes additional opportunity in creating significant capital gains and wealth. Today, most investing wealth is achieved by purchasing equity in a company before it goes public and not afterwards. This month, a global crowdfunding platform had not one, but two companies go from private to public in a resounding validation of the platforms service as investors saw the value of their shares rise dramatically. OurCrowd is all about democratizing access to opportunity. Smaller (accredited) investors gain access to many of the same deals that big name VCs or UHNW individuals invest in. In the crowdfunding space, OurCrowd is a unique and compelling opportunity for investors willing to shoulder some additional risk for the opportunity to capture significant gain. And it is working.
Two weeks ago, OurCrowd portfolio company Beyond Meat (NASDAQ:BYND) went public at a share price of $25/share and a valution well over Unicorn status. As of this writing, Beyond Meat is trading at over $70/share representing a significant increase in value for early shareholders. On Friday, May 10, another OurCrowd portfolio company - Uber, the most anticipated tech IPO in years, will go public at price of [$44 to $50] per share giving the ride sharing company a whopping valuation of [$80.53 to $91.51 billion]. In aggregate, over one hundred OurCrowd investors benefited from these successful companies. This is the type of success crowdfunding platforms have always preached about and now we have empirical proof that, given the right approach, it really can work. Speaking with OurCrowd founder and CEO Jon Medved, he explained that the best deals get to pick who they want to invest in their company. OurCrowd has earned that type of access:
“The only way you can compete is not by paying more, it is how you explain your value to the company after the investment. We are not just smart investors we are value added investors.”
Once OurCrowd backs a company they help the company to become a success. As each listed company includes some of their own money, or skin in the game, OurCrowd’s interests are aligned with both outside investors and the founders. OurCrowd currently holds 5 unicorns in their portfolio. Rumors indicate that more IPOs from their portfolio are in the queue for this year.
Medved says their deal flow is off the charts. OurCrowd is the largest crowdfunding platform in the world at over $1 billion in commitments. These two IPOs alone make OurCrowd one of the most successful. It is hard to argue with the results exemplified by Beyond Meat and Uber. According to Medved, OurCrowd investors are very happy. The only question is what’s next for the crowdfunding platform as these IPOs will be hard to top as they have set a very high bar.
Andrew Dix, Co-Founder and CEO, Crowdfund Insider, the leading news and information web site covering the emerging global industry of disruptive finance including crowdfunding and peer-to-peer / marketplace lending. Recognizing the overlapping aspects of the new forms of finance, Crowdfund Insider’s coverage includes both rewards and investment-based segments of crowdfunding. The site provides extensive coverage, and industry leading perspective, from a team of staff writers and leading industry expert contributors from around the world.
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