Our co-founder Cameron Neil was privileged to join a dynamic and interesting panel last week as part of SuperCrowd 25. SuperCrowd is a one of a kind virtual conference bringing together all actors in the crowdfunding ecosystem each year, organised by Devin Thorpe. While it is quite US-centric, Devin and his team have done a great job bringing in some global voices to broaden the focus. The US based conference did mean that Cameron had to present between 2am and 3am though!
The crowdfunding without borders panel, brilliantly moderated by Andy Field from the Global Equity Crowdfunding Alliance, dived into the challenges and opportunities of operating globally (as LendForGood does). Patrice Gaetan shared his experiences in The Caribbean, Meseret Warner spoke of harnessing the African diaspora to meet the needs of her home continent, and Konstantin Boyko provided a perspective as a tech infrastructure builder.
Here are some of Cameron’s responses to the panel questions in case you didn’t make the live event!
What does ‘borderless crowdfunding’ mean to you, and why does it matter for entrepreneurs and investors today?
Communities with common goals and interests can pool capital to support courageous impact enterprises no matter where they are in the world.
The challenges our communities face do not care about borders or nation states. We need capital of all kinds – financial, human, social, knowledge – to be able to move to where it is needed.
How can global crowdfunding models stay values-driven while scaling internationally?
Crowdfunding of all types, from local to global, is about trust and trust chains. Building and maintaining trust for us is essential for connecting courageous impact entrepreneurs, some operating in very challenging environments, with the capital they need. Investors need to be able to not only trust us to get the enterprises the money (and get it back to them), they need to trust the entrepreneurs to put their money to work to achieve the impact that they promised. Finding ways to balance scale and efficiency with human touch points and storytelling is vital.
What trust-building measures work best for convincing an investor in one part of the world to back a venture thousands of miles away?
Intermediaries + direct interaction is our approach.
LendForGood requires that any deal on our platform is proposed by an intermediary – an ESO, venture studio, accelerator or incubator and the like – who has a relationship with the enterprise, can vouch for them, and is willing to stake their reputation on the borrower executing. The intermediary shares their human and financial due diligence, and how they will support the enterprise through the loan period. It’s the intermediaries track record, domain expertise and those factors that an investor relies on.
We also create opportunities for potential investors to interact directly with the intermediary and borrower in live Q&As over video. This helps get beyond scripts and connect people.
Let’s make this real for our audience. Could each of you share one example where cross-border participation transformed a venture or ecosystem?
A new venture in Pokhara, Nepal – Sarvaguna Foods & Kitchen – successfully raised a AUD90k impact loan from 5 lenders in November 2022. These funds were pooled with their own capital to enable them to get their mass catering business to market. They broke even in their first year and have been growing ever since. Sarvaguna now serves almost 9,000 meals a day to 25 public and private schools, 1 medical college and hundreds of government and private institutions in Pokhara, sourcing from 500 local farmers, employing 120 staff and even launched their own Academy to provide 20 cooking apprenticeships per year to youth and marginalised people in their community.
If you could change one thing in the global crowdfunding landscape tomorrow, what would it be?
Large capital allocators – pension funds, VC funds, Foundations, DFIs and the like – realised the immense power of investing alongside communities of support for impact enterprises and did the work to enable themselves to invest through crowdfunding platforms.
What’s one practical step an entrepreneur or investor can take today to think more globally about crowdfunding?
Identify your people, your community. People with similar ambitions and who care about similar things are everywhere.
Recordings of the event should be available soon. Keep an eye on our LinkedIn for more or check out the SuperCrowd space.
LendForGood is a crowdlending platform and global community of individuals and organisations collaborating to mobilise millions in impact capital for courageous impact enterprises.
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