Best Equity Crowdfunding Platforms in 2024
In 2016, the JOBS Act opened the opportunity for non-accredited investors to have access and invest in startups via Regulation Crowdfunding. This created the Equity Crowdfunding industry, an industry that democratizes startup investing. The creation of the Equity Crowdfunding industry lead to equity crowdfunding platforms, platforms that host startups and aggregate opportunities for investors. These platforms make the investing experience better. Now, let’s look at the top 6 equity crowdfunding platforms for 2024:
1) Wefunder
Wefunder is the #1 equity crowdfunding platform for investors in 2024. One of the early pioneers in the market, Wefunder was founded in 2012 and has helped pave the way for other equity crowdfunding platforms and industry growth. Offering a diverse range of startup investment opportunities, investors can search across multiple sectors from technology to healthcare to entertainment to food & beverage.
Leading the industry in amount raised and number of investors, Wefunder raised $131.9 million from 118,174 investors in 2023 according to KingsCrowd. From an investor’s perspective, Wefunder has several features that make it investor-friendly like Top Investors and Real-time Investments. Top Investors allows investors to co-invest with those they respect and Real-Time Investments shows what investments are happening now.
2) StartEngine
StartEngine is right behind Wefunder, leading the equity crowdfunding charge. Acquiring SeedInvest in 2022 with Howard Marks leading the charge, StartEngine continues to grow its large user base and investment opportunities. Like Wefunder, they have a wide variety of investment opportunitites too, ranging from biotech to renewable energy to AI to consumer goods.
StartEngine raised $116.8 million from 80,268 investors in 2023 according to KingsCrowd. A feature that separates StartEngine is its Secondary Trading Market. This allows investors to potentially trade privately-held shares from prior investments. This provides a path to potential liquidity.
3) Republic
Republic is a user-friendly platofrm, known for its emphasis on transparency by clearly disclosing the risks associated with startup investing through educational resources and quizzes for investors. Its have a rigorous vetting process in order to curate high quality investment opportunities for investors.
Republic raised $30.7 million from 30,171 investors in 2023 according to KingsCrowd. A feature that separates Republic from other equity crowdfunding platforms is the low investment minimums. Republic allows non-accredited investors to invest in startups with investment minimums as low as $10-25 per deal.
4) Seedrs
Acquired by Republic in 2021, Seedrs is the leading equity crowdfunding platform in Europe. Sharing many similarities with Republic, Seedrs conducts thorough due diligience on every company raising funds and provides profesisonal-grade legal protections like warranties against inaccurate information and pre-emption rights so investors can maintain their ownership percentage in future rounds.
Providing real-time reporting on performance, low investment minimums, and a fully functional secondary market for early-stage private shares, Seedrs is an investor-friendly platform.
To Wrap Up:
I hope this helps all equity crowdfunding investors. Don’t hestitate to comment, question, or reach out below. We are creating a community for investors to learn, understand, and communicate with one another in order to be on the forefront of knowledge, opportunity, and insight in the equity crowdfunding industry.
