Indiegogo Pulled the Plug on Equity Crowdfunding Two Months Ago.
Here’s the Amazing, Awesome Part; We were the first ones to notice.
You saw it here first: Indiegogo Pulled the Plug on Equity Crowdfunding. Crowdfund Buzz reviews the crowdfunding world all the time. We’re a finger-on-the-pulse crowdfunding firm which is why we are the best at crowdfunding PR bar none. We know the markets. We know the trends. We know what’s happening and why. It’s also why we were the first to make this startling discovery.
We estimate that Indiegogo Pulled the Plug on Equity Crowdfunding back at the end of January 2019 based on a snapshot from The Wayback Machine.
It’s telling all on its own that after nearly two months Crowdfund Buzz was the first to notice. Indiegogo Pulled the Plug on Equity Crowdfunding as a story is thought provoking and raises so many questions.
The most burning one of all is: What happened? First equity crowdfunding, then ICOs and STOs and then…. POOF. All gone without a trace and without a word.
On November 16th, 2016 Indiegogo founder Slava Rubin penned quite a manifesto in trumpeting Indiegogo’s entry into equity crowdfunding. A day earlier, The New York Times gave Indiegogo gushing coverage on their bold equity crowdfunding move.
Fast forward to November 2017 and everything was coming up roses for Indiegogo in the equity crowdfunding space. Check out this one year scorecard published in Crowdfund Insider. Indiegogo was winning and they sought to expand. Indeed, they did.
Check out this quote from The New York Times in December 2017:
“We want to bring a brand of trust to the entire industry, which we think will bring [ICOs] to the mainstream,” Indiegogo co-founder Slava Rubin told The New York Times in 2017. “Now, we’re ready to become the go-to platform for selling and investing in digital tokens and blockchain-based assets, and we can’t wait for you to join us,” Indiegogo’s announcement added.
Then barely a year later Indiegogo is out of the equity crowdfunding business. Very suddenly. Very quietly.
While Indiegogo raised several millions of dollars since 2016 via its equity crowdfunding partnership with MicroVentures, there was never any more than a few equity crowdfunding campaigns at any given time.
Why Indiegogo Pulled the Plug on Equity Crowdfunding is best explained, in theory, by an anemic number of equity crowdfunding campaigns that collectively didn’t raise enough money to keep Indiegogo interested. In other words, not enough deal flow. Not nearly enough offers bringing in enough investor dollars to justify the effort.
The biggest shame of all is that this didn’t have to happen. We could’ve helped Indiegogo with their deal flow. Indiegogo knows us and our capabilities. But they never called us.
A word to the wise to other equity crowdfunding platforms; study this history lesson carefully and extract every particle of wisdom possible and improve your own platforms. As the axiom goes; Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. We’ve seen crowdfunding platforms come and go over the years and for us this is just one more chapter in the crowdfunding history book.
