…to join Angels of Main Street!
It should come as no surprise that the power of our voices grows when we control where money flows. This simple fact is the reason that Angels of Main Street, an investment community that anyone can join, is working to move investment dollars to the people and communities that have been overlooked by the mainstream small business funding ecosystem.
What makes us think that collectively we can shift massive amounts of money to women and BIPOC led companies? Believe it or not, 2020 was a game-changing year for Investment Crowdfunding, the most scalable alternative we have to venture capital. Investment Crowdfunding attracted $239.4 million in investments in 2020, up from $134.8 million in 2019. And it is predicted that the crowdfunders will invest at least $500 million in 2021.
While it is true that these numbers pale in comparison to investments made by venture capital firms in 2020 ($156.2 billion, up from $138.1 billion in 2019), venture capital funding went to only 11,000 companies with the average investment exceeding $14 million.
Even though the very wealthy are investing ever increasing sums in search of their unicorns, they are not expanding significantly into diverse founders and industries. This will be up to us.
Remember, virtually every adult can participate in Investment Crowdfunding while only about 8% of us are eligible to invest in a venture capital fund. If only 1% of the wealth held in stocks, savings, and retirement accounts were shifted from big banks and Wall Street, we would have a funding ecosystem worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Think of all the inequities we could reverse by simply democratizing what, and who, gets funding.
Angels of Main Street is the place to go if you are ready to dip a toe into investing directly in businesses you love. We provide an educational curriculum and support our diverse community of investors to work together to make their investments count.
If you have money invested on Wall Street (which is where 99.9% of regular folks’ investments are), your money is not doing anything to contribute to the productive economy. We would love to help you shift just a small percentage of your investment dollars to businesses that are making the world a better place, innovating, and creating community wealth.
We hope you will consider joining us! Please click here to learn more and join now.