BroadcastAsia 2013: Crowd Funding, Peer-to-Peer Investing, Crowd Sourcing

How Can Crowd Sourcing and Funding Work in Asia? Jouko Ahvenainen / June 19, 2013 Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

Grow VC Group ++ www.growvc.com ++

@growvc ++ Innovating Investing ++

Copyrights © Grow VC Group 2013

Jouko Ahvenainen ++


•  Serial-entrepreneur and startup investments

•  Mobile, media, advertising and data analytics startups

•  Worked in Asia, Europe and the US

•  Columnist at Telecom Asia •  Grow VC Group Founder and

Chairman •  uk.linkedin.com/in/joukoahvenainen/

Grow VC Group ++


•  2009 Grow VC Company was created o  to build #1 global equity crowdfunding online platform under

www.growvc.com domain

•  2010 growvc.com service was launched o  pioneer in equity crowdfunding

•  2011 Company expanded o  team of 50+ people spread across the globe o  develop the business globally within the equity crowdfunding

market segment. o  online platform was developed extensively to meet global and

local startup ecosystem requirements and startup lifecycle thinking

Group History ++


•  2012 Grow VC to Grow VC Group o  Grow VC Networks model was launched as public BETA. o  along with the JOBS Act passing in the US adding clarity to

emerging market, a bigger strategy switch was done to add focus on all of the company activities

o  the company was restructured to Grow VC Group with several different business units, companies and operational teams

•  2013 Acting as Grow VC Group with independent units o  all units focus on executing their own business in their

specific business area o  Grow VC Group reputation and synergies between units are

utilized where relevant

Group History ++


Finance and Services Infrastructure Portfolio

Entities ++


Grow VC Group Strategic partnerships and group

investment portfolio management

www.growvcgroup.com

Grow Advisors Consulting and investment bank type

services for crowdfunding ecosystem www.growadvisors.com

Mutual Seed Fund Crowdfunding co-investment fund,

works with many crowdfunding services www.mutualseedfund.com

Crowd Valley Turn key solution to start crowdfunding for any assets, equity or lending www.crowdvalley.com

growvc.com Startup ecosystem platform and leading global marketplace to invest money or work in early phase startups www.growvc.com

ChangeLab23 Design & build digital product, where customer experience is at the heart www.changelab23.com


Core Businesses 2013 ++

Full solution: investment community, tools, payments, backoffice and reporting – set up in a minute

3rd Parties can start crowd funding p2p investment market place on our platform ++


§  The team has invested three years into the crowdfunding industry globally, and positioned itself in the ecosystem globally "

§  The team has been part of the US Delegation in Transatlantic Economic Forum, had cooperation with Singapore Government Investment Company, "

§  UK Trade and Investment, and is a founding member of Crowdfunding Regulatory Intermediary Association (CFIRA), Crowdfunding Professional Association (CFPA), National Crowdfunding Association (NLCFA), European Crowdfunding Network, cooperation with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) "

§  We have a jumpstart on any direct competition with 400+ existing business customers, ranging from small communities to large networks of communities like the World Bank "

Building Crowd Funding Globally ++


Portfolio samples: Lost in Translations Inc. ++


•  Easy to use tool to make and maintain language versions of web services and mobile apps

•  Different services levels for translations, including crowd sourcing

•  Silicon Valley based company, with strong customer demand globally, including Asia

•  Enable any company to offer their services easily in any language

•  www.lostintranslations.com

Portfolio sample: Project Papillon ++


•  Fashion and design brand with a social purpose

•  A part of design and manufacturing in prisons

•  Social aspect: organizes art therapy and meaningful work for prisoners, and money to support inmates to integrate back to the society after a prison

•  A brand with a real story and meaning

•  Clothes and accessories for men and women

Engage Crowd ++


Read & write, participatory, conversational: markets are conversations, marketing is a conversation, business is a social science!

A new language:


Co-creation + networked economics + communities of interest can be and are, proven & powerful platforms and processes to stimulate innovation and commerce


Crowdsourcing is, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.

Crowd funding or crowdfunding (alternately crowd financing, equity crowdfunding, or hyper funding) explains the collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowdfunding is used in support of a wide variety of activities, including disaster relief, citizen journalism, support of artists by fans, political campaigns, startup company funding, motion picture promotion, free software development, inventions development, scientific research, and civic projects.

Source: Wikipedia

New finance regulation ++


Peer-to-peer Less fat middle-men


A cultural

challenge

…for corporates …for governments …for human beings


To resist will lead to

financial and organizational

exhaustion


global transparent

open collaborative

efficient scalable


Crowd & Traditional Models ++


Crowd sourcing with other sourcing ++


Self-service Make your own translations, but

tools to make it easy

Machine Translation Use 3rd party

machine translation

Crowd sourcing Crowd translates texts and tools to

manage the process

Professional translators

Tools to send to pro translators and let them to maintain

Crowd sourcing can work with other models to make sourcing, it can be one option, or it can e.g. work together with professional sources to optimize value for money

Sourcing from 3rd parties

Companies make sourcing and get investments all the time: the question is how to get crowd involved to this and develop models to make the sourcing and investing market more effective

Nothing new but totally new ++


Crowd funding 1

Market Place

P2P Lending

Companies / Assets Market Places Investors / resources

Co-investment and co-lending ++


1. Funding round or loan application

•  A company opens a funding round or apply a loan

2. Crowd funding or

p2p lending

•  Crowd, i.e. ordinary people, can offer an investment or loan, and if enough money available, the company gets money

3. Co-investment or

co-lending

• A bank or investment company can join to a deal, i.e. make co-investment or participate the loan

Grow VC Models ++


1. Direct investments o  An investor invest directly in a company, become a shareholder,

company can have hundreds of small shareholders 2.  Investments through an instrument

o  An investor can select a company he/she invest in, but the actual investment is done by an investment company that aggregate all investments together, the investment company is the shareholder

3. Crowd funding of investment instruments o  Crowd funding model is used to raise capital in a fund and the fund

makes investments 4. Co-investment models

o  Different models to make co-investments with crowdfunding

Investment models and crowd funding ++


•  Crowd funding, crowd sourcing and peer-to-peer investing is here to stay

•  P2P is not to replace all other models or solution for needs

•  It is crucial to build an ecosystem where different investment and sourcing models work better together, including p2p – new solutions are needed

•  P2P is not only for startup, it will have influence on all kind of companies and also in the whole finance sector

Future ++


“You don’t have to be Steve Jobs, to be an entrepreneur”


”You don’t have to be

Bill Gates to be an investor”


”Everyone must start somewhere”


Jouko Ahvenainen [email protected]

+44 7889 833 165 (UK) +1 646 363 6664 (US) +852 8120 7854 (HK)

Grow VC Group ++

www.growvc.com ++ @growvc ++

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