#onevest

.@Onevest Acquires @FounderDating, becomes the Largest #Network For #Entrepreneurs

Onevest announced today the acquisition of FounderDating to create one of the largest and leading networks of entrepreneurs and advisors, in combination with Onevest‘s subsidiary, CoFoundersLab.

The strategic appeal for the acquisition is clear. In addition to FounderDating’s large and curated community for finding advisors and co-founders, their Q&A platform – FD:Discuss – has grown in…

This post was originally produced for Forbes.

Imperative, a social enterprise seeking to help millennials find their purpose, recently completed its seed round using the investment crowdfunding site Onevest. We've previously covered both Imperative, founded by Aaron Hurst, author of The Purpose Economy, and Onevest.

Arthur Woods, Chief Operating Officer of Imperative, explained the deal terms for the seed round, “We did a convertible note of $750k capped at $5 million and set to convert upon a series A raise in 2015.”

Woods also noted that their success in this round leaves them thinking about future fundraising via crowdfunding, “Our positive experience on OneVest certainly leaves us inclined to leverage crowdfunding in our future investment rounds. It’s helped us foster new relationships, gain greater visibility and hit our fundraising goals earlier.”

Shahab Kaviani, Chief Marketing Officer of Onevest, which is the product of a combination of RockThePost (crowdfunding site) and CoFoundersLab (matchmaking for founders), explains the significance of deal for other social entrepreneurs, “Imperative is more than just a promising startup, with a unique vision. Imperative is a startup whose founders have unlocked all that Onevest offers to founders who take advantage of what we offer. Through a partnership with Onevest, Imperative was able to build their startup team, then go on to raise capital to scale their startup as they gained traction; all in one place.” He added, “Onevest is helping entrepreneurs with the two most difficult hurdles in venture formation – talent and capital.”

Kaviani went on, “We have more than 15,000 investors on our platform, and our investors are keen are various aspects of the companies their looking to invest in, including industries, location, and the types of founders running the business. It appears our investor base reflects the growing interest in amongst investors in general who are seeking socially responsible businesses. We don't have hard figures, but we're noticing more investors asking about businesses who operate on a double-bottom-line.”

Woods explained what this transaction enables Imperative to do, “The funding we’ve raised in this round, largely thanks to our presence on Onevest, will enable us to expand our technical team, accelerate the build of our platform and successfully deliver it to over 10 corporate clients by the end of Q1. Imperative is already generating revenue and growing quarter over quarter.”

Imperative is working to help everyone, especially millennials, to identify their purpose, “Imperative offers a series of self discovery experiences that help people understand what drives them, what they value and where they are at their best at work. With these new insights we enable people to personalize and enhance the way they manage their work, build their professional identities and engage other people in their work.”

Kaviani explained the vision for Onevest, “Our vision for Onevest is to build a brand built on trust, by delivering on our promise to founders, and being transparent with as much data as possible, to equip investors to navigate this emerging asset class with care. Building on top of our foundation of trust we may then execute on our vision, which is to be the place where where entrepreneurs and investors can access talent and capital to transform ideas into successful companies.” He concluded, “Onevest will reshape the private equity industry by democratizing access to early stage investing capital.”

This post was originally produced for Forbes.

RockThePost, an accredited investor crowdfunding portal announced this morning its merger with CoFoundersLab, an online and in-person matchmaking network that scientifically builds startup teams, creating a platform with 35,000 startup founders and 15,000 accredited investors where entrepreneurs have raised over more than $65 million. The combined company will be called Onevest.

Shahib Kaviani, CEO of CoFoundersLab and CMO at Onevest, explained the motivations for the merger, saying, “Over the last few years, CoFoundersLab’s mission has been to help entrepreneurs succeed. Once we were able to find a scalable way to bring more compatible teams together we began asking our community of founders what their next big challenge was. With an overwhelming response they shared that access to capital was the biggest need they have, particularly for teams located outside the major startup hubs like Silicon Valley and New York.”

He went on to explain that the team was intrigued by crowdfunding and was considering adding crowdfunding to the business model. Before doing so, they decided to raise their own seed round that way.

Kaviani added, “My research of the industry players led me to choose Onevest (formerly RockThePost) where we were able to meet and close a number of investors that we otherwise would have never met. This was a real eye opener for me and I thought to myself, this equity crowdfunding really works—in fact it is a total game changer for entrepreneurs.”

“After having success raising funds on Onevest it became clear to me that we must pursue this avenue and quickly realized that a partnership with Onevest would be meaningful on a number of levels. Once we learned more about both of our team’s synergies, culture, and broader solution, a merger was blatantly obvious,” Kaviani concluded.

“The best way to ensure that two cultures combine successfully is to validate they are compatible from the onset, making this a material consideration and condition for a deal to close,” noted Tanya Prive, former COO and founder of RockThePost and COO and Founder of OneVest. “The culture of both teams is absolutely aligned and complementary so we don’t anticipate any issues. Our weaknesses are their strengths and vice versa, so it really couldn’t have worked out any better.”

Equity crowdfunding is just now in its infancy. The JOBS Act, passed in 2012, created the industry, only rules for accredited investor crowdfunding have been issued in final form by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC later published draft rules for crowdfunding from ordinary investors and accepted comments on them for 90 days. Final rules have not yet been promulgated.

Alejandro Cremades, formerly CEO and Founder of RockThePost, currently CEO and Founder at Onevest

“Equity crowdfunding is the most exciting and perhaps most significant development in recent history taking place in the capital markets,” Alejandro Cremades, formerly CEO and Founder of RockThePost, currently CEO and Founder at Onevest said. “Undoubtedly there will be wrinkles the industry will need to address as this new avenue for capital flow continues to emerge – but the tremendous benefits will far outweigh any hiccups along the way.”

Cremades concluded with a word of caution about regulation, “However, for equity crowdfunding to really take off and approximate its full potential, it needs to be truly accessible to everyone, and more built around the reality of startup investing compared to initially circulated regulatory standards.”

Erick Brimen, formerly COO of CoFoundersLab, currently CFO at Onevest added, “Onevest is already compliant with applicable regulations as we currently operate in partnership with a registered broker dealer. We will continue to ensure as the industry evolves that we remain 100% above board and fully compliant with relevant laws.”

Remember to “join the cavalry” by subscribing to Devin’s content here.