This week, we rolled out some changes to the StartEngine platform, and we wanted to share those updates here as well. First and foremost, we revamped the StartEngine Owner’s Bonus.

As of this week, we have changed the StartEngine Owner's Bonus in a significant way: for all upcoming campaigns, investors will be able to earn their 10% bonus on their investment when investing at any time during the course of all Reg CF campaigns. Previously, investors could only earn that 10% bonus when investing during the first 24 hours of companies that participated in the bonus program. Note: this change only applies to upcoming launches and does not apply to the companies that are currently live and already raising capital on StartEngine.

Secondly, we have also updated our platform to give investors with the Owner’s Bonus priority if they are waitlisted on a company that has surpassed its maximum funding goal. This means that they will have the first opportunity to invest should room in the offering become available, in the event of canceled or failed investments. Similarly, this change only applies to upcoming launches and does not apply to the companies that are already live and raising on StartEngine.

The third update we made to the platform is that you may now notice badges next to usernames in the comment section of campaign pages, which you can see in the example image below.

We have introduced three badges, and those are:

• “Invested,” which means that the user has invested in the company whose page they are commenting on

• “X Investments,” which signifies how many investments that user has made on StartEngine

• “SE Owner,” which means that the user is a StartEngine shareholder

We made these changes to improve both the experience on StartEngine’s platform as well as that of StartEngine’s shareholders. We hope you like them. If you aren’t a StartEngine investor already, we encourage you to look at our campaign, invest in us, and earn your bonus to take advantage of its new features, including earning a 10% bonus on your investment when investing at any point during a Reg CF campaign and receiving priority on the waitlist.

At the beginning of 2017, we had 65,000 users on the StartEngine platform. It took us two years of building and marketing the StartEngine platform to reach that point. Yesterday, on May 23th, StartEngine’s 200,000th user joined our community!

In the same amount of time it took us to get our first 65,000 users, we grew our community by 3x, bringing us to our community today, now 200,113 users and counting.

Over 4,000 members of the StartEngine community have chosen to invest in StartEngine, whether in our first Regulation A offering or our current raise here. As we celebrate this milestone, we invite you to invest in StartEngine too and become a StartEngine shareholder. Help us continue to build our platform as we work to reach 300,000 users, 500,000 users, then 1 million and beyond.

On the morning of May 8th, the StartEngine team, including co-founder & CEO Howard Marks, Chief Marketing Officer Johanna Cronin, and Vice Presidents of Sales & Business Development Josh Amster and Allen Jebsen, hosted a 2018 Earnings Call to discuss StartEngine’s audited 2018 financials and the future roadmap of the company with StartEngine’s shareholders.

The team discussed:

• StartEngine’s values and 10-year vision
• StartEngine’s increased revenue of $4,682,528 in 2018 from $2,046,948 in 2017, a total increase of 129%, and a break down of that revenue: in 2018, StartEngine earned $1.4M in both Premium revenue and platform fees, as well as $596K from events & sponsorships
• StartEngine’s increased cost of revenues of $2,637,961 in 2018 from $729,108 in 2017, a total of 262%, and a break down of those costs
• StartEngine’s decreased gross margin of 44% in 2018 from 64% in 2017
• StartEngine’s marketing strategy
• The company’s 1-year plan, which includes launching our broker-dealer and secondary trading platform, signing 170 companies, decreasing onboarding time, raising capital for StartEngine, and launching a 3rd sales team
• The company’s 3-year picture, which includes having 200,000 active investors on the platform, 100 employees, 10+ sales teams, a 10+ team devoted to Secondary, bicoastal expansion, and more

At the end of the presentation, the call opened up for a Q&A with StartEngine shareholders that attended the call. You can watch the call in its entirety here: 

Recently, PopCom closed a $1M Regulation Crowdfunding offering on StartEngine, and the story of PopCom's CEO Dawn Dickson encapsulates StartEngine's mission to help entrepreneurs achieve their dreams.

In just 122 days, Dickson raised $1.07M and even appeared on the Breakfast Club, a nationally syndicated radio show, on March 11 as her campaign caught the interest of the press. The remarkable thing about Dickson's raise is that she broke a significant barrier in funding. Dickson was one of the first 40 black women to raise $1M or more in the US when she raised her first $1M for PopCom in November 2017, and with this raise, she becomes the first black female founder to raise over $1M in a security token offering.

0.0006% of venture funding goes to black female founders, and this story serves as an example that equity crowdfunding can open the doors of funding to everyone.

Her raise is a win for PopCom, for funding equality and for proving that equity crowdfunding is a viable funding model for entrepreneurs everywhere. We are proud to support PopCom's growth, and we invite you to invest in StartEngine and help us become a bigger and better platform that can support more entrepreneurs like Dawn Dickson.

On April 12th, we hosted the StartEngine Founder’s Summit, an all-day event for entrepreneurs to learn how to use equity crowdfunding for their business. We had over 150 entrepreneurs attend the event, including 40 StartEngine customers! We are proud to say the day was a success. Check out some of the pictures from Founder’s Summit below:

This week, StartEngine co-founder & CEO Howard Marks did an interview on Cheddar to discuss the difficulties of raising capital and how StartEngine makes fundraising easier for entrepreneurs by providing them access to the crowd through equity crowdfunding.

In his words, “the difference with our platform and what you see elsewhere, like venture capitalists for example...is [that our platform] is open to everyone. You have a main street investor who is looking for an investment opportunity directly into a company, and we provide that.”

Touching on his background in the gaming industry with Activision and Acclaim, Howard said, “I look at the world of finance like a game business. I don’t look at it from a financial perspective where you have all of these hurdles…[and] regulation. I look at it as an opportunity to change how things work.”

Watch his conversation with Cheddar’s anchor Alyssa Julya Smith in full at this link: https://cheddar.com/media/startengine-ceo-on-how-platform-is-democratizing-access-to-capital

I am thrilled that our second Regulation A offering has been qualified by the SEC. Last year, we raised $5M from nearly 3,500 investors in our first Regulation A offering. In the first few weeks of this second campaign, we’ve seen a lot of momentum already, and we hope to have thousands of new investors join the ranks of StartEngine Owners.

In the last few weeks, we’ve had a few exciting developments at StartEngine:

1. We recently increased the maximum investment limit for credit cards to $10,000 on StartEngine’s platform, giving investors greater flexibility in how they invest in companies.

2. In March, StartEngine achieved a major funding milestone. Companies on our platform have now raised more than $90M to date through StartEngine.

At StartEngine, we feel grateful because we are able to help so many entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. It is the fuel we need to keep going. I just got off the phone with an entrepreneur who raised $1M with us recently. They were excited about their successful raise and kept talking about their new community of investors and the future plans for the company.

With this offering, we are continuing our popular StartEngine Owner’s Bonus program, in which those who invest at least $1,000 in StartEngine, or are investing in StartEngine for a second or third time, will receive for one year a 10% bonus in shares in all participating Regulation Crowdfunding offerings when investing during the first 24 hours of new campaigns.

As we continue our journey together, I hope you will consider making an investment in StartEngine.

Best,

Howard

Please see our offering circular for additional information.