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The list below is just an abstract of the investor services offered by StartupSpider, please see service description to get a full overview (including the information that is already available).
By using the service, you accept that it cannot be understood as advising. It is fully the investor`s decision to invest or not to invest  

Broad overview of Crowd-/funding opportunities from various Crowdfunding platforms
Get access to an overview of the Crowd/-funding opportunities. Please note that some platforms or information may only become visible or updated when logged in.

Get in contact with other investors and share thoughts
You can reach out to other investors and share thoughts and questions.

Become a beta test user
As a beta tester you may get contacted by a startup if they would like to validate a product or product idea. This can be an amazing experience (for you and the startup). To indicate your interest, you need to flag your StartupSpider account accordingly (please login and select details).

Use artificial intelligence e.g. to validate a potential investment based on your own criteria
StartupSpider uses artificial intelligence and big data for increasing the benefit of our users and to produce “added value” for the investor.
E.g. you can define a set of criteria for which you would like to validate an investment opportunity. On the one hand it helps you to review an investment opportunity in a structured way. By storing your result (can be stored in an anonymous way) it becomes available to other investors, in two ways:
- If someone is interested in the same investment opportunity, he sees how others have rated it
- If you are defining criteria for which you would like to run a validation, the system shows you the criteria others have used

Get access to data analytics
StartupSpider maintains a data universe, which allows to run certain checks like: has that startup already tried to raise funding on another platform? Are there other startups raising money for a similar idea? This data analytics is built over time and is extended with every day.

Note
• Some of the services may come with a fee (charged by StartupSpider), to be paid via StartupSpider-“Credit points”.
• StartupSpider does not make investment recommendations/advices to you. No communications from StartupSpider, through this website or any other medium should be considered as an investment recommendation/advice. Further, nothing on this website shall be considered as an offer to sell, or as a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security to any person in any jurisdiction to whom or in which such offer, solicitation or sale is unlawful. StartupSpider does not provide legal-, financial- or tax advice of any kind. If you have any questions with respect to legal-, financial- or tax matters you should consult a professional adviser.

You can NOT invest on StartupSpider. The investment takes place on the individual Crowd-/funding platform. StartupSpider is only a technical enabler. If you use the opportunity overview and click on "invest" it guides you to the corresponding Crowdfunding platform. In case you have a corresponding sub-account of that platform (see StartupSpider technology, account vs sub-accounts) StartupSpider only supports you by "easy login", but the whole investing process takes place on that corresponding Crowd-/funding platform.

Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is a way for people, businesses and charities to fund money. It works through individuals or organizations who invest in (or donate to) crowdfunding projects in return for a potential profit or reward. Investing this way can be risky, so make sure you know what you’re doing and that you understand the various concepts/models and also the specific risks (all specific per Crowdfunding platform). There are different crowdfunding types you can choose. Each type has different type of benefits for investors.

There are several types of Crowdfunding
• Donation: This type of crowdfunding is designated for charities, or those who fund money for social or charitable projects, to gather and connect a community online and to enable them to donate to a specific project. While most established charities coordinate this through their own website, Crowdfunding platforms can be useful for smaller organizations and people funding money for personal or specific charitable causes.
• Reward: Reward crowdfunding allows investors to contribute to your venture in return for non–financial benefits. This type of funding is commonly used for creative projects. It usually operates as a reward system – the more an investor donates to your fund, the more the reward will be (e.g. credits on a record cover, tickets to an event, free gifts etc.). A benefit to the business is that receiving the reward doesn’t usually cost much to deliver.
• Equity: An equity crowdfunding type will invest money in return for shares, or a small stake in your business, project or venture. This type of crowdfunding could work best for growth-focused companies in areas where there is potential for return.
• Debt Crowdfunding (or Lending): Debt crowdfunding provides investors with the chance to lend money to businesses or individuals with the expectation that it will be repaid together with interest added. This finance option may provide the startup with borrowing at a lower cost than compared by applying for a loan through a bank. The advantage of this model is that it may be easier to get support for a campaign, as the investors are attracted to getting a return. This type of crowdfunding may work best for a business with a track-record of revenues. Various types of instrument types exist.

NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) has published crowdfunding guidance which provides further information on the different types of crowdfunding, statistics, examples and key considerations.


Campaign (also called “Crowdfunding project”)
A startup presents his company / idea on the platform and asks for money.

A crowdfunding campaign is in an essence:
• A presentation of the fund seeker (the investee e.g. startup) to the “Crowd”, helping the Crowd to learn more about the product or service you are looking to launch. The campaign provides all the essential information about the fund seekers’ business, such as its history in a digestible way for potential investors. The main point of a crowdfunding campaign is to give the business a reach that they have not been able to achieve before helping them increase awareness about their brand.
• A request of the fund seeker (investee) asking investors to participate in the funding. This “request” has usually a fixed time (how long he is looking to get the funding completed), a fix amount he is looking for (depending on the campaign setup the investment will not take place if the amount is not reached (underfunding), or it does not accept overfunding (as the investee looks only for a specific amount of money), a clear return (donation has no return in that sense, but the reward described by the product you can expect and for investment campaign the return in shares, or bonds or other investment vehicles

When running a campaign, one of the key features is that it allows the fund seeker (investee) to streamline all fundraising efforts. A campaign eliminates the need of having to pursue investors individually. It allows to present everything online in a much more accessible format, especially in the current smartphone / tablet period.

In conclusion, crowdfunding campaigns are a modern way of obtaining funding and rising alternatives to taking debt finance from the banks or seeking large amounts of money from investors. It enables investees to keep in touch with investors and keep them updated on any product development. 

You can lose all your investments. Crowdfunding is a new concept of investing in young business ideas – this can be very risky.

Investment-based crowdfunding (equity, equity like, lending)
The main risks of investment-based crowdfunding are:
• The return is not guaranteed: The shares may not rise in value and you may not receive any dividend payment (a share of the profits).
• Dilution: Is the reduction in the investor’s ownership percentage of a share of stock caused by a follow-up financing. Follow-up financing usually brings in additional investors as new shareholders. This means that the participation rate of existing shareholders is slightly reduced, which is called dilution. The dilution of existing shareholders including equity crowdfunding investors, is not only common in venture capital, it is also an absolute prerequisite for follow-up financing. However, this could have an impact on the value of your securities (dilution of your securities)
• The business you invest in might go bankrupt: Many new businesses fail in the first few years, so you could lose all your money.
• It may be hard to sell the shares. The shares are normally unlisted, which means you may not be able to sell them easily in the way you could sell shares of a big company that’s listed on the stock market.
• The Crowdfunding platform itself may go bust: This could mean you lose money if you’d paid the crowdfunding website, but it goes bust before your money was invested within the business.

Also reward based funding has its specific risks
• The business might go bust or fail to deliver: The funded company may go bust or simply fail to deliver the reward (e.g. product) you are waiting for and you get nothing for your money
• Not achieving quality: The reward may suffer under a lot of bugs / problems or not support all the features originally mentioned
• Delay: It may take much longer as originally planned by the company and you will have to wait very long until the reward arrives
• The crowdfunding platform itself may go bust: This could mean you lose money if you’d paid the crowdfunding website, but it goes bust before your money was invested within the business.

There are additional risks and also depending on the exact type of security (or reward type) you want to invest and also on the business model of the Crowdfunding platform on which you invest. Therefore, it is important you understand and accept the risks, terms and conditions (“how it works”) of the individual Crowdfunding platforms. Please see also the overview of connected Crowdfunding platforms.  

The different Crowdfunding types are described in section “What is Crowdfunding”. The following list of security types currently used on Crowdfunding platforms is related to the Crowdfunding type chosen. Most security types have also their specifics for each individual Campaign (which are described in the Campaign terms as part of the campaign documentation). Therefore, it is important to understand the specific term of a campaign and the list below should only be understood as high-level information.

Equity (see equity-based Crowdfunding)
When a company raises money by selling its shares, allowing shareholders to become partial owners of the company through the purchase of stock. Both debt and equity financing can happen independently or in combination with each other.
When issuing shares some Crowdfunding platforms are following the concept of the nominee arrangements. A nominee arrangement is a very common structure whereby the nominee holds a legal title to the shares for the benefit of another person. This means that the Crowdfunding platform is the legal shareholder in the relevant company’s shareholder register, but the Crowdfunding platform hold those shares on behalf of the various individuals who had invested in the company through the Crowdfunding platform.

The effect of this structure is that the Crowdfunding platform holds the shares; the full economic interest in them – including the benefits of individual tax reliefs such as SEIS and EIS – is passed through to the underlying investors. This concept reduces the administrative effort for the investor (who would have to take many small decisions as a shareholder) and the investee (who would have to manage many individual investors). This arrangement is very similar to a trustee relationship as well as to the structures used by stockbrokers and other types of intermediary platforms. The nominee concept is only supported in some countries (e.g. UK). Countries where this concept is not supported are using e.g. Crowd note.

Crowd note (see equity-based Crowdfunding)
One of the biggest early challenges to the type equity crowdfunding is the concern of a startup about managing lots of small shareholders (mainly when the concept of Nominee structure is not possible, as in most of the countries). Crowd notes are convertible notes, but the terms are not addressing an upcoming campaign, but a business events on which the crowd note will get converted into shares, such as Company’s election or a Corporate Transaction.

Fund (sometimes classified under the type equity-based Crowdfunding, even a fund is not an equity)
Diversification across multiple businesses with a single investment and become a shareholder in each. The fund organizer (who may run an accelerator- or venture capital fund, for example) identifies the businesses and often provides them with advice, support and mentorship.
The key to successful equity investing is selected diversification. A fund campaign allows you to easily diversify with the added benefit of the selected businesses receiving additional support and help.

Convertible notes (usually classified under the type equity-based Crowdfunding) 
Invest in a business now and in the future your investment will convert (usually with a discount to other investors). Convertible campaigns are often used by businesses when there is a large fundraising round on the horizon, but in the meantime they want to raise a smaller funding round. By offering a convertible note, the business doesn’t need to put a valuation on their company now and therefore avoids potentially affecting their negotiations with future investors. Investing in a convertible campaign allows you to invest today, with your investment being converted into an equity in the future at a discount compared to other investors, sometimes subject to a maximum valuation (referred to as the “Valuation Cap”). This is a very common structure used by angels and VCs all over the world. While this is the standard approach to convertibles, each one is unique and that is why it is important to understand the individual terms of the campaign before investing. 

Debt (see debt- or lending-based Crowdfunding)
Debt crowdfunding provides investors with the chance to lend money to businesses or individuals with the expectation that it will be repaid together with interest added. Various types of instrument types exist e.g. crowdfunding contract with interest-based returns, securities of a business, a debt instrument such as corporate bonds, for example. Some instruments allow for investing into shares that relate to potential company growth whereas others are strictly interest-based. Additionally, there are secured and unsecured debt instruments. Interest rates are typically based on the level of risk associated with a particular startup or entity. Each type has its on specifics.
Therefore, please read the corresponding terms.

Product (see reward-based Crowdfunding)
Rewards can range from something simple such as a thank-you postcard to a production version of the crowdfunded product.