All News

Blog & News

Could Crowdfunding be the Right Way to Fund Your Business?

Crowdfunding is one of the most popular new trends in funding. If you aren’t familiar, crowdfunding is a means to raise money for a project or service through various small donations from a large number of people interested in the project or service. In exchange for the funding, the supporters typically receive a product or some other form of compensation. For example, an independent film supported by crowdfunding may give out exclusive behind-the-scenes content to its supporters, or perhaps show an exclusive early screening to their supporters. Individuals support the business by giving them the monetary means to complete the project, and then the business returns the favor after their production is finished with relevant reciprocation. In a way, it works like any monetary transaction, except that you pay for the service before it’s completed!

Crowdfunding is popular for many reasons. For example, it provides common people the ability to support niche projects. Crowdfunding has supported numerous niche films and video games, most notably the game Star Citizen. Star Citizen has raised over $190 million in its continuing Kickstarter campaign, and millions of fans around the world look forward to its release. Star Citizen creator Chris Roberts turned to crowdfunding after the project was denied by a publisher for being too ambitious, but his decision to crowdfund Star Citizen-led to a situation where he could create the project he wanted and the fans could play the game they wanted! Similarly, another reason why so many people turn to crowdfunding is that of simply how large the industry is. According to Fundly.com, over $34 Billion has been raised by crowdfunding across the globe since it started, and small businesses have received $2.5 Billion in Equity Crowdfunding. Also, the crowdfunding industry is projected to grow to over $300 Billion by 2025, so it will continue to grow to be even bigger!

Are you interested in crowdfunding but don’t know what crowdfunding platform to choose? Here’s a very handy chart displaying the differences between platforms from Crowdfunding.com:

Want to see some crowdfunded projects from around the Pittsburgh area? Here are a few links to different crowdfunding platform’s Pittsburgh sections:

Make sure to look through those sections on the Pittsburgh area, there might just be a project that you want to support!

Click here to visit one of Pittsburgh’s most successful Kickstarter projects, A Better Backpack!

Interested in learning more about funding in general? Make sure to come to our no-cost program titled Show Me the Money! The event takes place on Thursday, September 20 from 8:30am-10:00am in Charleroi, PA. The program connects business owners to over 25 lenders and specialists to discuss topics like Debt Consolidation, Low-Interest Credit, Loan Processes for Approval, and much more. Register for the event by clicking here! We can’t wait to see you there!