Fundable for Angel Investing

And speaking of Fergus Burns he continues the conversation opened by John Collins about the Irish investment market and M&A activities.

I wish there was a version of Fundable for investing in companies. I, for one, would love to invest a few hundred (or more) in some of the early stage Irish Web 2.0 ventures, like Nooked, Tablane and PXN8, whether they're BES approved or not. Surely there are a few thousand like minded individuals out there. Multiply a few hundred by a few thousand and suddenly you're talking seriously useful funding for a startup.

The investments may be on the risky side of the spectrum but an entrepreneur is nothing if not risk loving and these are the type of companies I understand. I don't personally invest in property or blue-chip shares. I want to put money into things I know something about, regardless of the risk.

Comments

[Julian Ellison]

I know just what you mean. We need to raise Euro250K in angel funds if we want to accelerate the pace of things fro Tablane. We can trundle along under our own steam for months and months, but we have a cracking idea for an on-line server built on top of our browser, we want to bring to market asap, which means paying people to help us launch it. I am dialling for dollars right now.

The problem with doing things in the way you suggest though is that there is a ton of securities compliance red tape that you would have to take on board, plus quite a big fiduciary responsibility after you have raised the money.

That said, I am going to talk to our lawyers about whether this might be possible. I mean, if we had 5,000 people who loved out browser, and could buy in to 20% of the company to take it further, why not facilitiate this on-line whether through our own Web site, or a dedicated 3rd party service? Has to happen somehow.

[James Corbett]

Yes, I had a feeling compliance red tape, etc, would be a nightmare but I love to ignore such realities when contemplating a technological nirvana ;-)

Seriously though Julian I'm delighted to hear you're going to run this by your lawyers. If there's enough willpower behind something like this I don't see why it can't eventually be done. I loved the way Kevin Burton of Tailrank recently started using AdSense 'donations' for Angel Investing -

http://www.feedblog.org/2005/11/angel_funding_v.html

Ok, its on a different scale but it just goes to show that we should never stop looking for new models of funding. If we don't help ourselves who will? :)