Now, a 'stock exchange' for crowdfunding

A new online stock exchange seeks to aggregate trading for crowdfunding sources into a single venue, with visions of becoming the "biggest stock exchange" on the planet.

The exchange, called Seederella, is the brainchild of Ran Weiss, who was inspired to launch the service when Congress approved the JOBS Act in April 2012, reports Kent Bernhard Jr. in UpStart Business. The Act promises to open the way for equity crowdfunding in the U.S.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the stock market watchdog agency, is still hashing out the rules and details for equity crowdfunding investments as enabled by the Act. Recently, the agency opened up advertising across Internet channels on private offerings.

Nevertheless, there is a huge demand for crowdfunding, which enables startups and current businesses to raise capital in a more rapid and systematic way, without having to go hat in hand to venture capitalists or banks.

As Seederella's Weiss put it: "You have more than 15 million small businesses in the U.S. We are talking about the biggest stock exchange on the planet."

And that's not counting the millions of small businesses from the rest of the world.

In a recent Huffington Post article, Kevin Ducoff explains how Seederella works, noting that it provides a consolidated discovery engine to document trading opportunities across at least 536 websites dedicated to crowdfunding. The challenge, Ducoff says, is that the fragmented crowdsourcing market has resulted in "an influx of independent campaigns are gunning for cash, making it difficult for funders and project owners to browse and showcase projects."

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com