The Greenwood Project
The Greenwood Team Deen Wright CTO Rashaan Everett CEO Perris Adamson COO
What is the Greenwood Project? An accelerator designed to help entrepreneurs level the playing field by helping them defeat historical and contemporary barriers to wealth creation Title III Regulation Crowdfunding Portal ( FINRA Approved & SEC Compliant) *RegCF is a result of President Obama s JOBS Act (Equity Crowdfunding)
What is a Reg Crowdfunding Portal? How will we make money? A Regulation Crowdfunding portal is a platform where people can finally invest in private companies in exchange for equity (not just rewards like tshirts, mugs, posters per usual) Crowdfunding portals are only legal linchpin between thousands of startups seeking funds and everyday people looking to invest FINRA Regulations makes us a mandatory and indispensable intermediary We earn 5% of all money raised from the companies that use our portal
Regulation Crowdfunding to Democratize Venture Capital The venture capital industry has a very homogenous makeup: 76% white, 89% male, 90% live on the East or West Coast Only 3 percent of America s population could legally invest in startups: These select few determined what is new and innovative, and thus what the remaining 97 percent want, need and will use With such an elitist system, it goes without saying that Americans are missing out on the discovery and implementation of thousands of profitable solutions. But not for lack of ambition
Diamonds in the Rough: We find talent where traditional investors don t Until May 16 th, 2016, the wealthy enjoyed a government-protected monopoly on investing in high-growth startups Lack of access to capital has been debilitating for minority entrepreneurship: Only 1% of venture capital is invested in black entrepreneurs - potential billion dollar ideas never even get a chance to grow The lack of small business and main street lending for minorities reveals even more value underutilized
The Regulation Crowdfunding Landscape There are 21 portals registered with FINRA today The top three portals have raised approx 30M+ in VC funding to date, just to finance their existing operations
Our Partner: WeFunder is best in the business In 2012 Wefunder lobbied Congress to put an end to the laws preventing 97% of Americans from investing in the private market They ve gone on to dominate the market by creating a superior product with the best UX Wefunder invited us to use their software to handle the infrastructure and backoffice to power our own portal (SaaS model) This allows us to focus exclusively on marketing and growth instead of coding and product. We benefit from using the best software in the market.
Still, Reg CF hasn t developed according to plan 98% of the market is dominated by 4/21 portals Even investors in the leading portals have been disappointed with slower than expected adoption Since it s a brand new law, most experts speculate that the billion dollar market will materialize through 2017, as more people find out about the opportunity and learn about the success stories so far The law was always designed to benefit minorities since we ve been the most disadvantaged by oppressive laws for the last 83 years. Ironically, minorities have been completely overlooked in the deployment of the Reg CF solution thus far. Story of America. We believe Reg CF hasn t worked as well because the existing portals simply capable of marketing to the right customers.
Social Entrepreneurship: Transforming Black America The biggest movement for collective African American Progress since King s Montgomery Bus Boycott GWP s Accelerator Program Provides minority entrepreneurs with the tools needed to conduct their own Reg CF campaign on our portal + strategic support GWP s Crowdfunding portal: Provide Black people w/ their very first a chance to invest in their own communities, and earn a profit from supporting Black Business Gives minority entrepreneurs capital they deserve to start and grow
Metrics/Traction So Far Approved by the SEC $20,000 & counting raised for Accelerator on Wefunder in 19 days 7,500 followers across all our social media channels 1000 emails on our Investor Waitlist 5+ major media publications have featured GWP
Scaling in 2017: We can run WeFunder better than WeFunder does We re marketing Regulation Crowdfunding to the people that need it most Pop Culture and Black America is already embracing this movement. (see right) We ll have the power to organize viral growth, & earn significant market share Our plan: Amtrak Tour Across America in May 2017, in collaboration with celebrities/activists are already speaking with us (see notes) 2017 Goal: to help 20 companies raise approx 500,000 each, totaling 10M*. Easily scalable to 60M+ in 2018 *We earn 5% of funds raised.