Invest in small businesses

Unlike many other investment companies, the client wanted to make a focus on funds security and transparency. The client intended to build a system in which all possessions of any funds from investors and all committed capital was held in the third-party FDIC insured FBO account.

Once an investment company reached its minimum fundraising target, capital was transferred from the third-party FDIC insured FBO account to the investment company. Afterward, the company issued purchased securities to each of the investors.

If a company would fail to reach its minimum goal, all commitments were returned from the third-party FDIC account to the investor. The product did not include any hidden fees or accrued interest.

Challenges

It is natural that for every startup everything starts with big challenges and it’s crucial solving them correctly within the given amount of time. Before starting with any software development, we had to coordinate our working plan with the legal team to receive correct legal requirements and limitations.

Legal

In 2016 Obama signed a JOBS Act. His speech during the law’s crowdfunding provision:

This bill is a potential game-changer. Right now, you can only turn to a limited group of investors - including banks and wealthy individuals - to get funding. Because of this bill, start-ups and small business will now have access to a big, new pool of potential investors - namely, the American people. For the first time, ordinary Americans will be able to go online and invest in entrepreneurs that they believe in.

Although it was really a game-changer, there were no legal frameworks around the law by the time we started a project. We had to be flexible enough so that we can tweak the development process once lawyers provide detailed information.

Security

Dealing with funds always requires high-security standards. In addition to all technical security best practices, we provided consultations to clients’ employees and contractors. We set up a secure email service, discussed how to avoid social engineers’ hacks, how to keep sensitive data, and provide an additional layer of network security in the company office. The next step was to provide security for the investor funds and create protection from unfair businesses. From the technical side, we integrated escrow accounts and used additional third-party providers to secure investor funds. In addition, to protect investors, we developed software to help the company to complete the due diligence before listing the business on the platform

Funds limitation

The client raised an angel round and we had to hit important milestones in order to close seed and then series A rounds. At first, we provided a fully remote team which helped to raise a seed round. After the seed round, we were able to find local talents that fit the client’s goals and can increase the development process.

Solution

In 3 months we were able to provide a fully working MVP product. Fully working MVP gave a lot of trust for investors and also provided general feedback for the idea and values of the company. Having an MVP in place helped us to improve the product and business processes. Gradually, we built technical solutions ready for the public release which were fully focused on investors’ features and company owners’ requests. The platform was good enough so that the client managed the partnership with multiple credit unions and provided them a white label solution of the platform we created. Among these credit unions were such that had more than 2 million users and this forced us to do extra work for the platform optimization.

Results

During the first year, the client was able to list 54 different companies and raised more than $1.2 million to help local U.S.-based businesses to grow.