Type Private Products Municipal bond Founded 2012 | Industry Investing online Website neighborly.com | |
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Founders Patrick Hosty, Jase Wilson | ||
Neighborly is a San Francisco-based online investment platform that allows individuals to invest in civic projects through municipal bonds. Company began as a donation-based civic crowdfunding platform for civic projects. Neighborly has since evolved toward becoming an investing platform. Neighborly provides publicly available finance information on its website and sells municipal securities through its affiliated registered broker-dealer, Neighborly Securities.
History
Neighborly was founded in July 2012 in Kansas City, Missouri by Jase Wilson, a civic technologist trained in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Patrick Hosty, a municipal bond trader at financial firm Valdes & Moreno.
During the company’s first two years of operation, Neighborly facilitated donations for 55 community projects that collectively raised over $2,500,000.
In July 2013, Neighborly received a $175,000 grant from the Knight Foundation.
In April 2014, Neighborly won the 14th Annual Global Technology Symposium, held at Draper University in San Mateo, beating 8 other companies from 7 different countries. In October 2014, Neighborly completed the 500 Startups Accelerator.
In July 2015, Neighborly introduced the concept of ‘civic microbonds’ to lower the minimum denomination required to invest in municipal bonds.
In August 2015, Neighborly secured $5.5M seed financing led by Joe Lonsdale's Formation 8 and Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures.