Crowdfunding has been a pretty trendy topic as of late. Every day, a new project is either created, fully funded and/or broke some kind of record. While the projects being presented on popular crowdfunding platforms get most of the press, there is plenty of proof of local crowdfunding activity and it seems to be going well for lots of different people.
But if you’ve been following the gaming sector, you probably remembered this ambitious crowdfunding campaign launched by a company called Oculus. Their goal was to bring virtual reality to the modern era of gaming without all the mistakes companies have done in the past. The Oculus Rift is the company’s answer to this and it convinced almost 10,000 people to collectively fork up more than $2 million breaking their modest $250,000 goal. While there is still no ETA for a consumer product, Oculus has made great progress with its developer kits and kept backers preoccupied with their new toys. But nearly 2 years after crowdfunding campaign started, Facebook dropped a huge bomb announcing that they will be acquiring Oculus for about $2 billion.
Reaction among gamers was mixed since Facebook is viewed by the majority as a casual gaming and social destination while the Oculus Rift looked set for hardcore and indie gaming. On top of that, the backers felt cheated as they helped fund a project only to get even more from a huge company. Some people thought they deserve a slice of that $2 billion pie or at least a share. However, backers only pledged their money to get the developer kit and nothing more. If the Oculus Rift campaign used the equity crowdfunding model, the backers would have had every right to complain if the deal was struck.
This is the simplest example of how equity crowdfunding could be a huge deal this year. Startups need help in getting their projects funded and not everyone is comfortable with the pre-order model. Getting backers involved with the comapny makes the whole deal more attractive. Just take note that a lot more work has to be done from the legal matters to making a solid roadmap which is vital if you want to this work properly.