Photo credit; David Pacey on Flickr

VentureCrowd, an Australian online equity based crowdfunding platform, has officially opened for business in the country.

The VentureCrowd platform allows investors to receive equity in high growth-potential startups, making them shareholders in the startup ompanies.

It opened Feb. 20 with over 200 registered investors and 36 startups which have been pre-screened by the best Australian accelerators, incubators, angel groups and university programs.

Artesian Venture Partners, one of Australia’s leading early stage venture capital firms, developed the platform.

According to Artesian managing partner Jeremy Colless, there are a very large number of sophisticated investors in Australia who have not previously invested in the startup space.

“The wholesale investor market in Australia is large with 207,000 wealthy individuals in Australia sitting on $US625 billion ($684 billion) worth of assets,” Says Colless. “Until now there have been major barriers to entry for investors in startups. An investor either had to have a large amount of money and time available to screen and review each potential startup investment personally, or had to commit as much as $250,000 to a venture capital fund to qualify as a limited partner.”

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