ncubeeight

Back when I first moved to Silicon Valley in 1998, I tried to understand how capital markets made the valley such a unique place for inventors and entrepreneurs.  Corporate stocks, real estate, international currency and commodities markets were concepts I was well familiar with from my time working at a financial news service in the nation's capital in the mid 1990's.  However, crowdfunding and angel investing were new concepts to me 20 years ago.  Crowdfunding platforms seemed to be more to the advantage of the funding recipient than the balanced two-sided exchanges of the commercial financial system.  I often wondered what motivated generosity-driven models that was different from reward-driven sponsorships. When trying to grasp the way angel investors think about entrepreneurship, my friend Willy, a serial entrepreneur and investor, said: “If you want to see something succeed, throw money at it!”  The idea behind the "angel" is that they are the riskiest...