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Republic — Where everyone can invest in startups & tokens
Republic is an investment platform, where anyone can be an angel investor with as little as $10. For startups, it's a place to get exposure and funding at the same time, while acquiring an army of loyal fans. 95% of Republic fundraises have been successful.
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Congrats on the launch @kendrickesq & team! Spent a lot of time thinking around equity crowdfunding when the JOBS act was passed way back in 2012. (4 years later... Funny how Congressional "mandates" work 😉). Curious on your take on a couple q's:
1) how do you manage against adverse selection, i.e. avoiding presumably lower quality dealflow that's already been passed on by traditional angel / vc capital.
2) how's the expected cost of capital of each tier of title III deal compare to 506b/506c Reg D deals?
@jsandlund Thanks, Johnny. Republic fundraising is fundraising AND marketing at the same time, so it's def not an option of last resort. Second, many good ideas and innovations never get a chance to pitch or meet traditional angels, so the presumption of lower quality is misplaced. Only time can validate my confidence though. :)
Congrats on the launch @KendrickESQ! Can you talk about the moment when you knew you wanted to start Republic?
@eriktorenberg When the SEC announced last November that retail investment crowdfunding would be legal in May 2016, I kinda knew then that it would be a calling. AngelList decided not to operate in the retail space, but Naval and the entire AngelList team have been incredibly supportive of Paul’s and my effort to build Republic. After all, Republic does share AngelList’s mission of democratizing investing. We're just taking it to the general public, whereas AngelList’s fundraising products focus on high net worth angels and investment funds only.
@ryanmarr That's correct. As long as the company is an operating company and is formed under US laws, then generally it's eligible to run a campaign with us. Please check out https://republic.co/learn/issuer... for more info.
@kendrickesq @ryanmarr How about on the investor side? Can the investor be from outside the USA?
@odsamuels Yes, anyone with a US bank account can invest on Republic. In the future, we'll accommodate non-US bank accounts as well.
@chiancheng Not quite. Republic is less about promotion and more about investing and engaging founders with their investors.
@mickwho1 By law we can only work with companies formed in the US (Delaware or one of the states). Applicants can just send us a message to issuers@republic.co with some info about what they do and traction, and we will reach out for more info.
So excited for Republic! Letting customers instead of investors own a piece of your biz while raising capital is powerful. Thanks for bringing this into the world!
@katherinekrug Thank you for lending your expertise to help us and other entrepreneurs. To have a successful crowdfunding campaign, founders gotta execute a tight strategy post going live.
What's your point of gravity for "the best" startups vs. kickstarter? Good startups are equity-greedy :) congrats, really hope you do well!
@sshkzk Thanks for the support! Psychologically, investors are more committed to helping a company they invested in, compared to someone who made a one-time donation or bought a product. So for us, it's less about competing with kickstarter or other platform, and more about making sure that startups understand the benefits of equity crowdfunding and of Republic's strengths and vision.
@kendrickesq good point! I didn't think of this. Can we expect some kind of slack general channel for the investors then? ;)
@sshkzk Yes down the road we plan to productize investor engagement for companies fundraised on our site.
@kendrickesq 👍🏼indeed could become that key value attracting better ventures vs. substitutes. good luck guys
This looks like a great idea so far. I couldn't figure out if there are international restrictions on who can invest of if it is USA-only.
@odsamuels for now, foreign investors with US bank accounts can invest on our site. We'll work on accommodating non-US bank accounts soon.
@mouadmohssine Hi Mouad - No anyone with a US bank account for now. And we will be able to work with non-US banks soon.
@kendrickesq I get to see a lot of services like this, but Republic seems to be cooler.. but too bad I don't have a US bank account, I'm from Morocco. I hope I'll be able someday to invest through Republic, good luck guys!
What does this do to the cap table of an entrepreneur? If folks are able to get in with a minimum of $10 and I see that some of the campaigns on the home page are raising $100k, how does the final cap table look?
@onebandwagonfan a little complicated to discuss here, but please check out republic.co/crowdsafe and let us know if you have any questions.
@annettewon @seedinvest Yes, though we only focus on Title III deals, and not Reg A deals (a different, more late-stage type of public fundraising) or Title II deals (for wealthy individuals only).
Equity crowdfunding seems like a good idea, looking forward to it. But wouldn't be nice that the "investor" can also offer sth back to the startup? Like connections, consultancy, cooperation, etc. I think many ppl thinks that investment is always only about money, but what makes a Gd investor distinct from the rest is, not only he/she has money, but also has other things that can help the startup company grow.
@roy_hui Sure, but that's more like equity-compensation for services. That adds a bunch of variables making it difficult to build a model that works for all.
I love the idea, and have been looking forward to someone to execute on this well.
Just as a thought, it may be helpful to include feedback from individuals / entities who have chosen to invest in a specific company - essentially, as a way of mimic'ing the "lead investor" effect in start ups - i.e. someone reputable that has vetted a company and is able to articulate the reasons they have invested for others who want to "follow". Ultimately, the risk is still fully borne by each individual investor, but just adds more dimensions to risk evaluation. Anyway, just a thought! Looking forward to using this!!
Congrats Republic team! How different is this from flashfunders? Are there any specific structure e.g C-Corp for startups to be able to raise funds?
@kausmukherjee Thank you! As long as you're an operating company (LLC or corporation) formed under US laws, then generally you're eligible to run a campaign with us. Please check out https://republic.co/learn/issuer... for more info.
@kendrickesq thank you! That's awesome. Is there an email i can shoot to get some more info?
Congrats to the Republic team on launching this important platform that will open up opportunities for founders and a new set of investors.
More from Republic's Founder, Kendrick: https://medium.com/@KendrickEsq/...
And here's the launch announcement from my co-founder Paul: https://medium.com/equitycrowdfu...
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