Crowdfunding activists and haters should point their eyeballs at Indiegogo today, as the crowdfunding platform has just announced that it’s launching a new equity crowdfunding service that might remind you more of Fig than of traditional fundraising platforms.
“By utilizing new equity crowdfunding regulations that took effect in May, the new service provides entrepreneurs on Indiegogo the opportunity to raise funds from interested investors in exchange for financial stakes in their company, and provides funders on Indiegogo the opportunity to own a financial stake in innovative startups,” the company says. “The launch of equity crowdfunding is the latest effort by Indiegogo to help entrepreneurs throughout the entire lifecycle of their projects.”
Notably, one of the launch companies is none other than ArtCraft Entertainment, the game studio building upcoming PvP “throne war simulator” MMORPG Crowfall, which itself was Kickstarted by gamers early last year. The company will raise funds at a minimum $100 buy-in with 63 days left to go, giving gamers a chance to earn a return on their investment through crowdfunding for once.
“[A]s you guys know, ArtCraft is a start-up. Start-ups often raise money by selling stock (or some other instrument) to help bring their product to market. Early investors can participate in the hopes of furthering that goal and maybe even make a nice return-on-investment in the process. Until a few months ago, it was only legal for accredited investors (which is a fancy term for “rich people”) to invest in start-ups online. That just changed, and now (with certain restrictions), companies like ArtCraft can take investment from normal people. IndieGoGo has partnered to launch a site today to host these kinds of investments. They wanted to include a game in the initial line-up of offerings, and thought that Crowfall would be perfect. They invited us, and we agreed. We have wanted to be able to let our backers become more deeply involved in our company since the beginning — but until now there wasn’t a good way to do it.”
