6/19 MIT / Stanford VLAB Presents, Crowdfunding: Disrupting Traditional Funding Models

When: Tuesday, June 19, 2012
6:00 - 7:00pm Networking and Refreshments
7:00 - 8:30pm Panel Discussion and Q&A

Where: Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge, Stanford University
291 Campus Drive West
Stanford School of Medicine
Stanford, California 94305

Can your $1 contribution create a Big Business? YES, with crowdfunding.

$1.5 billion in 2011, crowdfunding is set to double this year [1]. Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunded 60,000 projects: Half of the cash came as donations, while the other half came as an exchange for creative rewards or future product.

Now that the JOBS Act lets startups exchange Equity-for-Cash up to $1M per year, implementation will prove interesting. Crowdfunding has vined its way through informal social networking sites, and these continue to fuel the rapid growth of this new economic engine.

Will crowdfunding consume or complement existing capitalist models?
How will alternative funding models accelerate disruption?
Will it create massive opportunities for entrepreneurs and the economy overall?
What does it mean to give equity to individual consumers and what's the impact on the company?
Will VC's shy away from a Series A funding due to the startup's early-stage crowdfunding?

Moderator
Carl Esposti, Founder at Crowdsourcing.org

Panelists
Slava Rubin, CEO & Co-Founder at IndieGoGo
Brian Meece, CEO, RocketHub
Daniel Zimmermann, Partner, WilmerHale

For more information and to register: http://www.vlab.org/article.html?aid=446