#crowdfinance2014

It's very safe to say that NYC believes in crowdfunding. In Crowdnetic's second Crowdfinance conference at Thomson Reuters's Times Square office, the rooms were packed with many familiar faces and companies and some new entrants like their top sponsor--Real Partner. And if you were at the P2P event the week prior, you would have seen many of the same faces. This is the first sign of a real community that's developing in the crowdfunding/crowdfinance space. The biggest similarity in this community is that the people/companies involved want to collectively bring the crowdfunding (and marketplace lending, P2P lending, etc) market to new heights.

Another theme that was evident was one that was also at the recent P2P event. That theme was, "What are we calling this space now?" Like last week's event, Crowdfinance began calling the P2P space, "marketplace lending," noted in Luan Cox's opening talk. Deborah Jackson, the founder of Plum Alley, also mentioned a name change in her female focused crowdfunding platform. Deborah says that 80% of the funding in each project comes from people's "circles" or their current network. Because of this, she believes that this is just "funding." There's no question that the terminology is being updated as the crowdfunding space begins to mature and develop.

There were many more takeaways at Crowdfinance 2014, which I'll recap like I did the last event. If you plan on sharing this on Twitter, just use the hashtag #Crowdfinance2014 or you can search that hashtag to see some of the conversations from the event.

Luan Cox (Co-Founder & CEO, Crowdnetic) Follow Luan on Twitter @luancox Follow Crowdnetic on Twitter @Crowdnetic "It's no longer P2P lending. It's not marketplace lending." "80% of the attendees at Crowdfinance come from Wall Street or a Wall Street background."

Jason Best (Co-Founder & Principle, Crowdfund Capital Advisors) Follow Jason on Twitter @Wylie_Coyote Follow Crowdfund Capital Advisors on Twitter @CrowdCapAdvisor "Crowdfinance has gone from 'Will it work?' to 'It works.'" "First crowdfunded company to IPO came from OurCrowd--ReWalk." "Platforms will begin to specialize." "Features will matter. What can you do for me before, during and after? -- Syndication, Better Visibility, Investor Relations, etc." "It's all about the investor." "Right now, it's about education." "Hybridization--angels & VC's see crowdfinance as deal flow discovery." "The global market is exciting in Asia, Latin America (Chile and Mexico), Turkey and the Middle East." "What's necessary to scale is Infrastructure, Trust, Transparency, Metrics, Analytics and White Space (unknowns that we'll need in the future)." "Large corporations are getting involved and thinking about it regionally."

Panel: The Crowdfinance Marketplace Moderator: Tim Baker, Thomson Reuters Panelists: John Higgins, Prosper; Michael Solomon, CircleBack Lending; Ryan Feit, SeedInvest; Zack Miller, OurCrowd; Sohin Shah, iFunding

Zack Miller (General Partner, OurCrowd) Follow Zack on Twitter @newrulesinvest Follow OurCrowd on Twitter @OurCrowd "OurCrowd's challenge is finding new deals, not investors." "Startups have a 40% default rate, but we haven't had a company fail yet." "Another challenge is to scale internationally." "GE Ventures made an investment in one of our companies on the platform."

Sohin Shah (COO and Co-Founder, iFunding) Follow Sohin on Twitter @SohinShah1 Follow iFunding on Twitter @inno_funding "We started with equity and then moved into debt." "We focus on new construction and multi-family." "Lending Club and Prosper have made people comfortable with investing in unsecured loans." "Reporting to investors is important to create investor confidence." "Real estate crowdfunding has the potential to redefine communities."

GRAB SCREENSHOTS OF TWEETS FROM THESE PEOPLE AT THE EVENT

Ryan Feit (CEO and Co-Founder, SeedInvest) Follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanfeit Follow SeedInvest on Twitter @seedinvest_co "The challenge is getting more high quality deals." "Family offices are big investors." "Our average investment size is $31k." "Continue to scale, but keep quality high." "There's less money in the public markets nowadays. Amazon and Microsoft went public around $500 million, but Alibaba went public at $120 billion. Lots of money used to be made in public market and now most of the money is made in the private market." "A secondary market is key to success for liquidity and appreciation."

Michael Solomon (Co-Founder and CEO, CircleBack Lending) Follow CircleBack Lending on Twitter @CircleBackLend "We'll see more expansion like Lending Club's expansion into small business loans." "In the future, we may see new marketplace lenders start offering lower FICO's onto platforms, creating risk for the industry." "Banks are starting to put marketing dollars into the platforms." "Education is key to success." "More mass marketing will happen." "The future is not predictable, so performance over time is key."

Tim Baker (Head of Content Strategy and Innovation, Thomson Reuters) Follow Tim on Twitter @tim63baker Follow Thomson Reuters on Twitter @thomsonreuters "The older generation and the Senior Executives on Wall Street are not adopting this trend."

John Clark Higgins (Director of Strategic Partnerships, Prosper) Follow Prosper on Twitter @ProsperLoans "Predictability is important for Prosper, so our investors get the returns that they expect."

Panel: CrowdFinance: A Huge Opportunity for Women Moderator: Geri Stengel, Ventureneer Panelists: Amanda Brown, National Women's Business Council; Deborah Jackson, Plum Alley; Terry Rieser, TAG Creative; Joanna Schwartz, EarlyShares

The women in crowdfunding panel was a great addition to this year's Crowdfinance event. I recall someone in the audience asking in a previous panel if there's any opportunity for niche lending to specific demographics. The women in crowdfunding panel was a great example of that--crowdfunding for women specific projects. This panel was also a good move by the organizers because there were more women at this event than the P2P Lending + Investing event the week prior.

Deborah Jackson (Founder and CEO, Plum Alley) Follow Deborah on Twitter @dbdj1007 Follow Plum Alley on Twitter @plumalleyco "We have an 80% success rate on our platform." "Rewards based crowdfunding is park of the capital chain." "VC's and angels want to see the young startups run a crowdfunding campaign for multiple reasons--to see market interest/demand and to see the entrepreneur in action." "Women tend to support women-run campaigns and men tend to support men-run campaigns." "80% of the capital comes from the entrepreneur's circle and 20% from the crowd...so I call Plum Alley a "funding platform" not a crowdfunding platform." "The terminology is changing. When you pre-order a product, it's not a reward." "Don't underestimate this opportunity of women with money who control spending."

Panel: Legal Considerations Moderator: Daniel Gorfine, Milken Institute Panelists: Douglas Ellenoff, Ellenoff Grossman & Schole; Keir Gumbs, Covington & Burling; Anthony Zeoli, Ginsberg Jacobs LLC; Brian Korn, Pepper Hamilton

Doug Ellenoff (Partner and Owner, Ellenoff Growssman & Schole) Follow Doug on Twitter @douglasellenoff "Title III will not make you money."

Anthony Zeoli (Senior Attorney, Ginsberg Jacobs) Follow Anthony on Twitter @AJZeoli Follow GJ on Twitter "I wish the SEC and regulators would let the market mature, rather than try to tear it down."

Doug Atkin (Portfolio Manager, Guggenheim Partners) Follow Doug on Twitter @ddougatkin Follow Guggenheim Partners on Twitter @GuggenheimPtnrs "P2P lending dwarfs equities." "Real estate crowdfunding is huge."

Panel: Securitizations and the Peer Lending Marketplace Moderator: Larry Chiavaro, First Associates Loan Servicing, LLC EVP Panelists: Jonathan Barlow, Eaglewood Capital; Paul Fielding, SoFi; Zhengyuan Lu, OnDeck; Gary Kochubka, Standard & Poor's Rating Service

Jonathan Barlow (CEO and CIO, Eaglewood Capital) "We created our own structure and do our own underwriting using 80 data points on each loan we invest in. This way, we're able to filter exactly what we're looking for." "The Euro market is 2-3 years behind the US market on the institutional side."

Paul Fielding (Director of Capital Markets, SoFi) Follow SoFi on Twitter @SoFi "There's lots of demand right now for an investment product, but not enough product."

Zhengyuan Lu (SVP Capital Markets, OnDeck) Folloow Zhengyuan on Twitter @zlu94 Follow OnDeck on Twitter @OnDeckCapital "People measure revenue of lending companies by how much money they give away, but how much money you collect back is just as important. OnDeck has been able to grow at a high rate and lower losses at the same time."

Panel: The Growth of Real Estate in Crowdfinance Moderator: Susanne Ethridge Cannon, DePaul University Panelists: Dan Miller, Fundrise; AdaPia d'Errico, Patch of Land; Peter Slagowitz, RealPartner; Haider Nazar, LendZoan; Scott Whaley, REIA & REIAF

Dan Miller (Co-Founder, Fundrise) Follow Dan on Twitter @dan__miller Follow Fundrise on Twitter @fundrise "The SEC is limiting the vision of localized investing into your own community."

Scott Whaley (President, National REIA & REIFA) Follow Scott on Twitter @Scott_Whaley Follow REIA on Twitter @NationalREIA Follow REIFA on Twitter @REIFA_org "I think that Wall Street and institutional money are going to steal the 'good' vision that crowdfunding can accomplish--thinking on a local 'neighbor' level."

Haider Nazar (CEO, LendZoan) Follow Haider on Twitter @haidernazar Follow LendZoan on Twitter @LendZoan "The key to success is to keep the quality high and to minimize the risk." "We give back to every community that we work in."

AdaPia d'Errico (CMO, Patch of Land) Follow AdaPia on Twitter @adapia Follow Patch of Land on Twitter @patchofland "We want to change the way people think about finance, and simplify it." "We believe that real estate crowdfunding is more than just about wealth building. It's about building social good, too."

Peter Slagowitz (CEO and Co-founder, RealPartner) Follow Peter on Twitter @pslagowitz Follow RealPartner on Twitter @RealPartner "Regulation is key to providing access to the public and to the success in this space."

Blaine McLaughlin (Head of Business Development, Folio Institutional) Follow Folio on Twitter @FolioAdvisor "Liquidity adds to trust, transparency and confidence." "A secondary market is critical for this asset class." "There's no need for the platforms to build their own secondary markets." "Folio is the only secondary market that trades unsecured and private placements."

Panel: International Landscape Moderator: Adam Braggs, Crowdnetic-Europe Panelists: Goncalo de Vasconcelos, Syndicate Room; Zack Miller, OurCrowd; Rodrigo Niño, Prodigy Network

Rodrigo Nino (CEO and Founder, Prodigy Network) Follow Rodrigo on Twitter @ProdigyNino Follow Prodigy on Twitter @ProdigyNetwork "It doesn't make sense that unaccredited investors can't invest through real estate crowdfunding because these investments have been the most stable since the recent financial crisis." "We raised $200 million for a skyscraper in Columbia--allowing the community to invest back into their community." "We're in 12 states and focusing on expansion into Germany and Spain--where our most active investors come from, outside the US." "We're selling Manhattan to the global market." "Moving from an economy to a full blown crowd economy." "I see a secondary market in commercial real estate."