The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch - 20 VC FF 022: Crowdfunding Is Here To Stay with Ayan Mitra, Founder & CEO @ Crowdbnk

20 VC FF 022: Crowdfunding Is Here To Stay with Ayan Mitra, Founder & CEO @ Crowdbnk

11/20/15 • 24 min

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Ayan Mitra is the Founder & CEO @ Crowdbnk, an investment crowdfunding platform that allows you to invest in high growth businesses through both equity and debt. Ayan himself has a background as an enterprise architect and technical manager, having worked with leading consumer companies including M&S, Orange and First Direct. He took his LBS MBA to follow his passion and launch CrowdBnk in 2011. Since 2011 Crowdbnk has raised nearly £20m for high growth startups.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Ayan make his way into the world of startups and tech and start Crowdbnk?

2.) What is Crowdbnk, how does it work, what companies Crowdbnk raise for, what is their minimum investment etc?

3.) What are the key drivers of the massive rise of the crowdfunding sector? What effect will the recent SEC ruling have on global crowdfunding?

4.) With the greater and greater amounts being raised on these platforms, does Crowdfunding have the potential to replace VCs in the future?

5.) What are the greatest barriers to mass market adoption of the crowdfunding model? What have been the biggest challenges faced in the journey with Crowdbnk?

6.) How do crowdfunding platforms plan to draw investors away from funds and other portfolio based assets given the level of risk associated with investing in young companies?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Ayan's Fave Book: Intelligent Investing by Benjamin Graham

Ayan's Fave Crowdbnk Investment: Gojimo by George Burgess

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Crowdbnk on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow him on Instagram here!

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Ayan make his way into the world of startups and tech and start Crowdbnk?

2.) What is Crowdbnk, how does it work, what companies Crowdbnk raise for, what is their minimum investment etc?

3.) What are the key drivers of the massive rise of the crowdfunding sector? What effect will the recent SEC ruling have on global crowdfunding?

4.) With the greater and greater amounts being raised on these platforms, does Crowdfunding have the potential to replace VCs in the future?

5.) What are the greatest barriers to mass market adoption of the crowdfunding model? What have been the biggest challenges faced in the journey with Crowdbnk?

6.) How do crowdfunding platforms plan to draw investors away from funds and other portfolio based assets given the level of risk associated with investing in young companies?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Ayan's Fave Book: Intelligent Investing by Benjamin Graham

Ayan's Fave Crowdbnk Investment: Gojimo by George Burgess

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Crowdbnk on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow him on Instagram here!

Previous Episode

20 VC 089: Eric Paley @ Founder Collective on Outliers, Inspirational Founders and Pro Rata

Eric Paley is the Managing Partner at Founder Collective, one of the world's most successful seed funds with investments in the likes of Uber, Hunch, Makerbot and About.me. Prior to Founder Collective, Eric was the Co-Founder and CEO of Brontes Technologies, later acquired by 3M for $95m. Following it’s acquisition Eric began making angel investments and it was not long before Eric and David, 'super angel' at the time, saw the potential for a Founder First seed fund and Founder Collective was born.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Eric made his move into the wonderful world of venture from founding Brontes Technologies?

2.) What does Eric make of early stage valuations? When creating a venture fund why did Eric believe the seed stage was the stage with the most opportunity?

3.) Question from the legend, David Hornik @ August: At such an early stage where Founder Collective traditionally put in $0.1m-$0.3m, does Eric feel they put in enough money to make it matter?

4.) Does Eric believe that by not doing follow on rounds they are missing out? Does this resistance to seed funds set Founder Collective apart? David did mention that you have begun to follow on now, so what makes you follow on with one portfolio company and not another?

5.) The Founder journey is testing both physically and emotionally, what elements of support do Founder Collective provide outside of the business relationship?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Eric's Fave Book: Fooled By Randomness

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Eric on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow him on Instagram here!

Next Episode

20 VC 090: Balderton Capital's General Partner, Suranga Chandratillake on What It Takes To Be A Great CEO

Suranga Chandratillake is a General Partner @ Balderton Capital. He was previously an entrepreneur and engineer having founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He then lead the company for eight years as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, building a profitable business and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalisation in excess of $1Bn. Before founding blinkx, Suranga was an early employee at Autonomy Corporation - joining as an engineer in the Cambridge R&D team and ultimately serving as the company's US CTO in San Francisco.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Suranga made his way into the wonderful world of VC?

2.) Why are so many technical European CEOs fearful of continuing the position as CEO? What can we do to improve it?

3.) What does Suranga think makes a great CEO? Which CEO Suranga respects the most and why?

4.) How have Suranga's years as an entrepreneur affected his investing style? Does Suranga have a consistent investing style or does he look to iterate a lot?

5.) Balderton is an Equal Partnership VC, what does that really entail? Why does Suranga think this model is the most efficient? Looking at the new appointment of Lars, how do the GPs assess new candidates for the treasured GP position?

6.) What sectors is Suranga most excited by and why? Does Suranga think there is further to go in the consumerisation of Enterprise Software? Does the announcement of Emergence moving from the sector signal a turning tide?

Items Mentioned In Today's Show:

Suranga's Fave Book: The Old Man And The Sea

Suranga's Most Recent Investment: Cloud Nine

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Suranga on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

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