The new model, an early stage fund with 20 companies, constitutes a single investment offer.
OurCrowd, an angel investors club based on crowdfunding from wealthy individuals, is launching a new platform: a fund that will invest in 20 companies in the early stages - less mature companies than those in which the club is currently inclined to invest.
The current OurCrowd model allows a club of about 8,000 wealthy investors to choose investments they like from a portfolio of several dozen companies. OurCrowd also invests some of its money in each of its portfolio companies. The club has invested in over 70 companies to date.
The new model, an early stage fund with 20 companies, constitutes a single investment offer. The purpose is to raise $10 million in investments of $50,000 or more. OurCrowd said that the funds currently investing at the seed stage usually require $1 million or more from their investors, and that this model represents "further democratization of early stage investment."
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OurCrowd founder and CEO Jon Medved said, "Our investors asked us for access to earlier stage investments, but our existing model is suitable for investments of millions of dollars, so it was necessary to devise a new model. The new fund will offer $500,000 to each one of a selected group of companies."
The new fund, to be called OurCrowd First, will be managed by serial entrepreneurs Eduardo Shoval and Yori Nelken. Shoval was a founder and senior manager in Optibase Ltd. (Nasdaq: OBAS), which held its IPO in 1999; VCON Telecommunications (Nouveau Marche: VCON), which held its IPO a year before that; Accord Networks, acquired by Polycom in a $340,000 share swap; and BigBand Networks, which held an IPO in 2007 at a company value of $700 million and was sold in 2011 for $170 million. Nelken was an entrepreneur and manager in Banter, TimeBridge, and Local Sciences.