Originally published in Entrepreneur Magazine

By Douglas Fink

Could Elio Motors, a maker of a quirky three-wheeled car, be the model for the future of corporate finance?

The Phoenix startup has created a sexy, high-mileage, low-cost, car, which–yes–will sport three wheels. More importantly, perhaps, last month it became the first crowd funded company to be traded publicly, eventually rising to a $1 billion-plus valuation in the over-the-counter market.

Not bad considering that founder Paul Elio started the company with the help of $17 million from 6,600 investors on a crowdfunding platform.

The funding was enabled by the 2012 JOBS Act, created during the Great Recession to help capital-starved entrepreneurs. Under various regulations that have been rolled out under that legislation, crowdfunding can be considered for many types of fund raises, ranging from the tens of thousands to the tens of millions of dollars.

Of course, crowdfunding has it roots in the fund-my-movie, I’ll-mail-you-a-t-shirt raises, a la Kickstarter or Indiegogo. But it has evolved way beyond that into something much more disruptive and powerful: honest-to-god crowd finance.

Read the full story at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/274893

Douglas Fink is the CEO of Group Capital LLC.