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Crowdinvest launches first crowdfunding investment platform

26 Apr 2012

Crowdinvest has announced the launch of its innovative platform that uses online crowd sourcing as an investment platform for South African consumers. The start-up focuses on the possibilities of profit sharing, business equity, capital assets and property that can turn a small investment into an actuality; simply by investing, learning and building relationships.

Part of this relationship building is with a crowd using a range of social media connections and friends as enhanced support - a third party validation of a business idea.

Crowdinvest has two areas of involvement - an individual who wants to support the development and birth of a new product or idea can do so by investing in the prototype and with the help of his funds develop the project. Thus giving investors first access to funded projects. The second is when an individual or a business launches its project on the platform with an aim to attract set investment funds within a given time by using the support of their crowd, or social network. This enables a project to attract funds and Crowdinvest will return the funds to users if the full amount is not raised and the project will shut down.

Business comply with legislation

The Crowdinvest business model has been carefully structured to comply with current South African legislation and the structure has been developed in cooperation with leading firms Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs and Price Waterhouse Coopers as their specialist service providers.

The business is targeted for young working professionals aged 25+ who are active on various social media communities, entrepreneurs, creators and innovators. These targeted individuals wish to build an investment portfolio, but have limited sources of income (between R500-R5000) to invest. Crowdinvest promises to help in their single, easy to use web based platform and with benefits like easy access, low contingent fees, no track record' necessary, a 'marketing effect' and available finance the brand aims educate the South African marketplace about this simple business model.

The founders behind the model are CEO Anton Breytenbach, Jay Thomson and Jaco van der Bank who have invested years of financial, legal, digital and educational experience into this venture.