We are excited to announce that this week we entered into an agreement to sell SeedInvest to Circle. This acquisition is subject to FINRA approval, but assuming regulatory consent, this will be a very positive development for our investors, our team and the entire SeedInvest community. First and foremost, I wanted to share that we will continue to operate the platform just as we always have but will now have significantly greater resources to help fuel our growth.

We embarked on the SeedInvest journey six years ago with a simple vision: “what if entrepreneurs could utilize the Internet to raise capital?” When we take a step and look back at the past six years, it’s clear that we’ve accomplished some pretty amazing things so far:

• We helped spearhead the passage and implementation of arguably the most disruptive change to U.S. securities laws in our lifetimes, the JOBS Act.
• We provided millions of Americans access to startup investing for the very first time.
• We built a rapidly growing community of over 200,000 investors.
• We have had over 35,000 entrepreneurs initiate applications to raise capital.
• We have funded hundreds of disruptive startups and helped to create thousands of new jobs.
• We established the largest equity crowdfunding platform in the U.S.
• We made the Inc. 500 List as the 4th fastest growing financial services company in America.

While we have accomplished quite a lot, it’s also clear that we still have a lot of work to do:

• Liquidity for startup investments continues to be challenging and remains a necessity for establishing venture capital as a true asset class for the masses.
• There is a whole world out there, beyond U.S. borders, still waiting for us to explore.
• Startups are simply the beginning. There are many other alternative asset classes which also need to be unlocked for investing in and trading for billions of people.

Over the last few years, and particularly over the past 12 months, we’ve witnessed the rise, fall, and continued development of new technologies, approaches, and markets that bring our long-standing vision dramatically within reach. Crypto assets and blockchain technology in particular has illustrated the potential of a completely new infrastructure for finance and investing. And although blockchain technology is still in its infancy, the phenomenon has been global, across multiple asset classes, and at a scale that is hard to ignore. This interest in tokenized assets and the blockchain led us to Circle.

In Circle, we found a great partner with similar values and a well-aligned long-term vision:

• We plan to change the way that businesses and people raise capital.
• We seek to democratize investing and open-up new asset classes to millions of investors.
• We will provide liquidity to private companies and other alternative asset classes in a way that had never been possible before through the issuing and trading of digital assets.
• We believe that security tokens are the inevitable next step in the evolution of our industries and, together, we will be able to provide a true one-stop shop spanning issuing securities, trading and secondary markets for digital assets, and providing a seamless experience to the retail investor to benefit from all of this.
• We look to reimagine the entire financial system as an open, global and connected digital economy built on blockchain infrastructure.

Circle is a market leading crypto platform and is led by an amazing team that we look forward to becoming a part of:

• Circle is well capitalized and has solid investors (have raised $250 million from Goldman Sachs, IDG Capital, Accel, General Catalyst, Bitmain, Baidu, Jim Breyer and others).
• Circle has a very strong management team (Co-Founders, Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville took their two previous companies, Brightcove and Allaire Corp., public).
• Circle already has a vibrant secondaries marketplace for digital assets and a global footprint.
• Circle highly values our team, our technology and our business- so we will be able to continue doing what we do best.
• By putting one of the top crypto platforms in the world and the largest equity crowdfunding platform in the U.S. together, we can accomplish considerably more.
• We encourage you to read more about the merger agreement with this blog post published today from Circle’s co-founders.

Thank you to the entire SeedInvest community. Your support over the years has enabled us to grow from just an idea to a thriving community of 200,000+ strong. We look forward to continuing to work with you for many more years to come as part of the Circle family.

One journey ends … another begins.

Ryan & James

Ryan M. Feit
CEO & Co-Founder
SeedInvest

James Han
COO & Co-Founder
SeedInvest