GoFundMe VS GoGetFunding: Which is a Better Crowdfunding Platform?

At Singularity University, we’ve also launched a Crowdfunder campaign to raise capital for our SU Labs Accelerator Seed Fund. This comes from Title II of the Jobs Act (2012) that allows any company to publicly advertise their fundraising efforts. Title II takes the 80-year-old, highly regulated, private placement deals (~$1.2 trillion dollars/year) from the hush-hush boardrooms into the open public forum (at least for accredited investors). All the submissions – both proven concepts and innovative ideas – were fed into a Submissions Mind Map, visualizing the links between the different proposals. The Submissions Mind Map also allowed users to understand how the submissions could reinforce each other.

Footer Social

Through grants and risk capital, GIF supports breakthrough solutions from for-profit firms, nonprofit organizations, researchers, and government agencies to maximize their impact and catalyze meaningful change. GIF’s portfolio currently includes 24 for-profit investments gogetfunding and 27 investments in other types of organizations. Through 2020, GIF had invested just over $100 million in these innovations. Funding for innovation remains relatively small compared to the overall amount of bilateral ODA and annual commitments by DFIs.

If you’d like to join my Syndicate — to follow the companies I’m personally advising/investing in, click here. The first deal I am backing on the platform is an exciting machine learning and data mining platform called Experfy. Over the last 30 years, I’ve raised hundreds of millions of dollars for my startups and XPRIZEs. The open call reached over 1,500 participants, generating over 230 submissions.

Embracing collaboration to share a bigger pie

Since 2010, DIV has committed $172 million to fund innovation; since 2014, GIF has committed approximately $100 million; and last year, PI2 committed $145 million. As noted above, the U.S. government should meet its commitments to GIF and should increase those in the coming years. Too much official finance—both grant-based ODA and DFI finance—remains risk averse, preferring to provide investments or grants to relatively safe, tested methods. From an accountability perspective, this is understandable, but it does limit what the government is willing to support, and it may not always deliver the best return for the money provided.

When it has worked best, DIV has frequently provided a small initial pilot amount of funding that helped to generate additional evidence of impact. GIF then used that evidence to justify taking further risk and providing a greater amount of money to scale up a particular innovation. GIF has also coinvested alongside the DFC (or OPIC) and other DFIs, often playing a “de-risking” role by making an investment more palatable. By their nature, innovation funders such as GIF and DIV have smaller amounts of funding available. This is why both adopted a model of tiered funding that ties higher financing to greater evidence of impact.

This week, Migicovsky launched a new Kickstarter campaign for Pebble TIME and raised $17 million in only 11 days ($7.4 million in the first day!). With 19 days left (as of the writing of this blog) it’s crushing the record. Other than that, you can also have your backers club by using these platforms, which would help provide necessary support in taking your business forward and putting together a list of future investors. In addition, you can show your campaign in front of thousands of people interested in seeing unique new projects come to life, which makes it an ideal scenario for creatives or businesses looking to make their dreams come true. People love this site because it allows them to be directly involved with giving money. However, they feel it is best used without having any personal ties or responsibility towards how that donation will impact other people’s lives.