Russian and foreign sites for collective financing

In the previous materials of the cycle devoted to the launch and development of FINTECH startups, we, in the international processing company PayOnline, led 10 trends and told about 5 principles that the founder of any technological startup needs to remember, conducted a virtual tour of the global fintech hubs and also listed main Russian and foreign fintech accelerators .

This article focuses on the basic tools that allow any technology startup to attract funding through crowdfunding and crowd-hanging tools.

Among Russian crowdfunding platforms, Boomstarter and Planeta.ru should be highlighted.

The project Boomstarter was founded in August 2012 by Ruslan Tugushev and Yevgeny Gavrilin. The platform allows to attract funding for the development of creative and technological projects. If you believe the statistics provided on the project site, to date, 1,186 projects have been implemented with the help of Boomstarter, and funds have been raised totaling 281 million rubles. and 142,195 potential sponsors registered. The commission of the platform is 5%, another 5% goes to payment systems and another 13% is charged as personal income tax. To be placed on the platform, the project must have a ready-made prototype, a stated goal and a limited time frame for fundraising. If the project does not collect the required amount by the deadline, all money is returned to the sponsors. The rules of Boomstarter do not allow projects related to the collection of funds for personal needs (training, treatment, payment of purchases, etc.), opening their own business and charity. Detailed information about the rules of the site can be found in a special section of the site.
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Release 1. 10 trends in the world of fintech, which is useful for startups to know
Release 2. 5 principles about which it is important to know to every founder of a technology startup.
Issue 3. Excursion to the world finteh hubs
Release 4. The global range of fintech accelerators
Issue 5. Russian and foreign platforms for attracting collective funding

Crowdfunding and crowdinvesting platform Planeta.ru , like Boomstarter, appeared in 2012, but 2 months earlier. In accordance with the statistics posted on the official website of the platform, to date, 478,564,124 rubles have been raised with the help of Planeta.ru. and implemented more than 2,000 projects. The size of the commission Planeta.ru corresponds to Boomstarter. In addition, the platform offers its participants a form of raising funds, such as crowdinvesting , allowing users who have invested in the project to receive financial rewards.

Separately, it is worth noting that both Boomstarter and Planeta.ru hold special events designed to train project founders in effective crowdfunding.

It should be noted, and the project Waves , in contrast to the above-mentioned platforms, demonstrated the capabilities of the blockchain technology for crowdfunding and crowdinvesting. The project team is positioning its platform as a hybrid solution between p2p-investing and crowdfunding, able to challenge classic crowdfunding platforms. The main advantage for users of the platform is stable dividends and the possibility of exiting the project without loss. Fundraisers can organize fundraising at the expense of fiat currencies, bitcoins and tokens. By the way, tokens (or crypto shares) issued on Waves can be traded on a special decentralized exchange with the support of a reputation system.

According to the LTP edition, accelerators are able to provide companies with some financial support. Nevertheless, their programs have their own terms, after which start-ups must show very good results in order to receive further funding. As a rule, in order to attract new funds at this stage, company founders have to choose between crowdfunding, arranging personal loans and, of course, using venture investors.

We also suggest that you familiarize yourself with some foreign crowdfunding platforms , where newly-minted entrepreneurs can start their big journey:


CircleUp is a leading crowdfunding platform where accredited investors get direct access to investing their own capital in fast-growing consumer products and private retailers that were previously inaccessible or little-known. It works within the framework of the equity investment model, when, by investing, the investor becomes entitled to a stake in the future company. The platform has built-in tools for transferring funds online.

The number of participants launched in 2005, the EquityNet platform has more than 100 thousand entrepreneurs, investors, incubators, government organizations and other members of the business community. The service is designed to search for private businesses in order to assist in their strategic planning, analysis and investment in their development.

Fundable is a crowdfunding platform that offers investors both a fractional model of work and one-time awards for supporting the project. Fundable does not charge a fee for funds received during the company, but a monthly placement on the site costs $ 179. If a startup fails to receive the stated amount, the funds are returned to investors in full.

MicroVentures is a shared crowdfunding website designed for the early stages of funding. The site is registered with the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of the United States as a broker and helps accredited investors to find start-ups, businesses and services that want to get funding or participate in trading on the securities market. In total, MicroVentures managed to raise more than half a million dollars.

Onevest's core business is also building relationships between accredited investors and young companies. The service offers a whole range of additional services, including: legal and marketing assistance, comprehensive legal assessment. The Onevest network, which has more than 72 thousand entrepreneurs, has already helped raise a total of more than 23 million dollars. Onevest works together with CoFoundersLab.com, a friendly search-and-like search service to create its own startup.

SeedInvest is a shared crowdfunding platform, which includes such names as Avenue A Ventures, Krillion Ventures, Scout Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital and others in the list of investors. The monthly fee for participants is $ 250, the commission for a successful fundraising campaign is 7.5%. In addition, the company charges up to $ 3.5 thousand for legal expertise, deposit services and legal assistance in case of a successful outcome. SeedInvest team consists of professional investors and has very strict procedures for checking applicants. Currently, more than 500 startups have passed the selection - the main customers of the platform.

FundersClub is an online venture investment platform. About 10% of the funds received are deposited in a special fund designed to cover the fees for legal, financial and administrative services provided to the startup after the successful completion of the campaign.

The Wefunder service allows everyone to invest in startups. The minimum amount of investment is $ 100, and the process of its registration - just 30 seconds. Investing in Wefunder is also available to non-accredited investors from all over the world and is limited only by income. The site has already helped 106 startups to get a total of more than $ 14.5 million from 48 thousand investors.

Investable platform members receive early access to the best of its kind technology venture capital projects. The Investable Special Committee carefully selects startups and recommends them to the participants, while the platform itself acts as the main investor, thereby providing direct support to the selected startups. The project was developed by the team that created the Hong Kong incubator NEST and encourages startups to look for investors who can also become mentors or advisors for them. Becoming a member of the platform is by invitation only.

Crowdcube is one of the leaders in crowdfunding investment in the United Kingdom. The company allows everyone to invest in startups and businesses at the early and other stages of growth. The financing process is supervised by professional investors within specialized investment funds. The number of platform participants exceeds 235 thousand registered users. The total investment during the lifetime of the project exceeded $ 180 million, distributed among 330 startups.

It is impossible to ignore one of the pioneers of crowdfunding - the Kickstarter platform, which has been operating since April 2009. Kickstarter works with Amazon Payments to accept payments. The commission from the funds raised by Kickstarter itself is 5%, Amazon Payments - 3-5%. If the project hosted on Kickstarter has not collected the required amount by the stated date, the funds are returned to the sponsors. Since the launch, 11 million users have supported Kickstarter, a total of $ 2.5 billion has been raised and 110,566 projects have successfully attracted funding. One of such projects was the collection of funds for the development of fintech accessory - the first contactless payment ring Kerv .

As we see, the infrastructure of crowdfunding and crowdinvesting is gradually developing and is available to founders of technological projects not only abroad, but also in Russia. In addition, to optimize the processes of the platform, advanced technologies are being introduced - for example, they use blockchain technology.

Continue to follow PayOnline processing company blog updates and stay up to date with Russian and foreign tools that simplify the process of raising funds for the development of any technological startup.