Crowdnetic

Founders and officers

Crowdnetic was founded in 2011 by Srikanth Goteti and Luan Cox, both of whom had previously worked for Fintech. Cox is the firm's CEO, Goteti is its CTO, and Nathan Barber is its CFO/COO. Cox is a sales and marketing specialists who was involved in establishing such firms as Quote.com, Stockpoint, ScreamingMedia and Interactive Data. Goteti, a former Senior Director of Technology at Interactive Data Managed Solutions, is an expert in data modeling, derivatives, transformation, and normalization of securities market data.

In September 2014, Crowdnetic hired James A. Jones as Director of Business Development for the Americas. Jones had previously worked at Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo.

Foreign officers

In November 2014, Crowdnetic established a London office and at the same time partnered with the British financial media site Digital Look to launch a new crowdfunding portal. The portal was intended to aggregate data from various crowdfunding platforms in the UK to establish a “one stop shop” for users looking to examine open deals, review firms' financials, and monitor firm funding. Seedrs was its main contributor.

As of September 2015, Crowdnetic still identified itself as having offices in New York City and London, but in September 2016, Crowdnetic described itself on its website as having offices in New York City and Hyderabad, with no mention of a London office. Adam Braggs, who was the firm's Business Development Director – Europe from August 2014 and its Managing Director – Europe beginning in January 2015, ceased doing both jobs in May 2016, when he began working at Exundis.

Crowdnetic Technologies Private Limited was incorporated in India on January 18, 2016, and registered in Hyderabad as a subsidiary of a foreign company.

Funding

Crowdnetic announced in June 2014 that Perot Jain, LP, had provided it with seed funding. “Crowdfunding has rapidly grown from simple peer-to-peer lending to become a complex global phenomenon, and Crowdnetic brings essential transparency and stability to the marketplace,” said Ross Perot Jr., co-founder of Perot Jain. “While the industry itself is still emerging, it already has attracted global attention as well as investors large and small. Crowdnetic is the clear leader in their field and stands at the forefront of the sector’s tremendous growth potential.” Anurag Jain, Perot Jain's other co-founder, said that Crowdnetic had “revolutionized this sector."

Clients

In September 2013, Crowdnetic began tracking fundraising from 16 major portals, which publish anonymized data to Crowdnetic. As of February 2015, Crowdnetic had 8 million accredited investors and had tracked over 5,000 companies that have sought to raise money online. At any given time, 3,500 companies are active on the portals tracked by Crowdnetic.

Marketplace Lending Gateway

In September 2015, Crowdnetic launched Marketplace Lending Gateway, a “centralized technology platform that connects loan applicants from banks and retailers to alternative funding sources through a real-time matching and allocation engine.” The platform allows consumers and small businesses, previously turned down for loans, to receive multiple loan offers in minutes. “There is a tremendous supply-demand imbalance between borrowers and lenders,” Luan Cox said on announcing the launch. “Gateway provides the much-needed connection between those needing capital and those looking to invest. Through the platform, banks can provide an added service to their clients by connecting those seeking capital through alternate routes to lenders and institutional investors." The Marketplace Lending Gateway also permits brands to offer loan alternatives to their constituencies. Partners may refer customer loan applications into the system and utilize selection parameters to match prospective borrowers with alternative lenders. At the time of the launch, Crowdnetic also announced related partnerships with several marketplace-lending platforms and several hundred banks.

CNBC Crowdfinance Indexes

The CNBC Crowdfinance Indexes provide an overview of the crowdfunding market. The main CNBC Crowdfinance 50 Index, updated daily, lists the 50 highest capital commitments received by private U.S. firms listed on Crowdnetic’s data platform. Other CNBC Crowdfinance Indexes track real estate, services, and technology.

Other tools and applications

LendviousPro also enables users to upload custom default and prepayment curves; and Lendvious Institutional, which hosts third-party models to test institutional investors' custom requirements with contracted leverage terms and provides access to an Excel add-in, LendviousMetrics, that permits total control over internal risk reporting. YieldMaster and YieldMasterPro, which run on Lendvious, are cash-flow engines that offer custom control and permit investors to model periodic cash flows. YieldMaster is designed to help investors manage their liquidity in marketplace lending, run analytics on portfolios, and allow customers to upload custom default and prepayment curves on a monthly basis.

Conferences and webinars

In August 2013, together with Traklight and Indiegogo, Crowdnetic agreed to host a series of educational webinars for entrepreneurs and startups interested in crowdfunding and IP education. The first webinar took place in September 2013.

Crowdnetic held its first Crowdfinance Conference in Manhattan, New York in December 2013. Its second conference took place in October 2014 and its third in September 2015.

In April 2015, Crowdnetic took part in the FinTech Startups Conference, which brought together Silicon Alley's top FinTech founders, innovators, and investors for panel sessions, live demos from FinTech startups, and a sponsored networking reception.

Dara Albright and NowStreet

Crowdnetic arranged in July 2013 to acquire NowStreet Journal, a crowdfinancing educational platform. NowStreet’s founder, Dara Albright, became Crowdnetic's Chief Strategy Officer. In June 2014, Crowdnetic filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging a breach of agreement by former partner Dara Albright. Crowdnetic claimed that Albright regretted having sold NowStreet for only $5,000, and that as a result of the deal Crowdnetic owned a third of Lendit. Albright filed a countersuit denying Crowdnetic's ownership of NowStreet and claiming she had been “fraudulently induced” to sell. “It is unfortunate that we were forced to file this action,” said Cox. “We intend to let the facts speak for themselves, and we have the utmost confidence the courts will rule in our favor."

Partnerships

In 2013, Crowdnetic began collaborating on UC Berkeley's Program for Innovation in Entrepreneurial and Social Finance to promote the university's role as a resource for investors, platforms, and policy makers. Crowdnetic then shared the data collected under the program on companies seeking funding via the 506(c) exemption of the JOBS Act. Crowdnetic also joined Springboard Accelerator, thereby acquiring access to “hundreds of other innovators, investors and industry experts that are the human capital in this powerhouse network.”

In 2014, EarlyShares, a funding platform that connects investors with investment opportunities, entered into a partnership with Crowdnetic whereby EarlyShares's 506(c) private offerings would be published via Crowdnetic's private offerings dashboards on Dow Jones' MarketWatch and CrowdWatch. The company also entered into a partnership with Equities.com, an online financial publication and social community for investors, “to make available certain features and functionalities on their respective sites to achieve the goal of creating a more transparent market for investors."

In 2015, Wired reported that CNBC and Crowdnetic were teaming up on a new crowdfinance index, which Steve Lewis of CNBC called a “seas [sic] change.” Crowdnetic and City AM announced a new joint website, CityAmCrowdwatch, devoted to UK crowd finance data culled from such funding platforms as Property Moose, Angels Den, Crowd for Angels, Fireflock, Funding Tree, Property Seed, Seedrs, Crowdcube, and The House Crowd. Crowdnetic also partnered with the crowdfunding platform InvestDen, to “make the sector morally accountable for the deals it offers to investors,” and Thomson Reuters.

In 2016, Crowdfund Capital Advisors (CCA) launched CCA Regulation Crowdfunding Indices in conjunction with Crowdnetic. Under the deal, CCA's data would be updated daily “to depict a snapshot of growth in this new market.” Crowdnetic has also partnered with the private investment platform 99Funding, which “Coming from the traditional securities market,” Cox said, “they were quick to recognize the value that Crowdnetic brings to the emerging crowdfunding Luan Coxmarket.”