Toronto-based capital raising platform DealMaker has taken over the book of business of crowdfunding platform FundAmerica from its parent company Prime Trust.
Speaking with BetaKit, DealMaker CEO and co-founder Rebecca Kacaba said the deal is a significant one for DealMaker as it doubles the startup’s client base and “solidifies” its position as a leader in helping companies raise capital in the United States (US).
Founded in 2015 by Kacaba and Mat Goldstein, DealMaker offers a suite of primary issuance, shareholder management, and capital raising solutions that includes equity crowdfunding, investor ranking algorithms, and data analytics tools. The firm touts itself as “the Shopify of the Capital Markets,” and says its technology enables organizations to own and control exempt market raises.
DealMaker claims to hold a “major market share” in the US, with a customer base of over a thousand users. The startup also operates in Canada, though to a smaller degree.
FundAmerica is similar to DealMaker in that it provided back-office technology for the crowdfunding industry. FundAmerica was launched in 2011 by Prime Trust founder Scott Purcell, and then merged into Prime Trust in 2018.
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Having raised $107 million in Series B funding in June, Prime Trust has decided to focus its business on being digital assets infrastructure provider, which led to it shedding FundAmerica.
FundAmerica will no longer support new equity raise activities on its platform, and will work with DealMaker to transition current businesses using its crowdfunding and escrow services to the Canadian company. Prime Trust is calling DealMaker its “exclusive referral partner” for FundAmerica.
Kacaba said Prime Trust choosing a Canadian-founded company to hand over its crowdfunding platform book of business was a notable move. She claimed that DealMaker is the only company of its size and scale that could handle FundAmerica’s business. DealMaker claims to have powered “the largest and most sophisticated capital raises,” across 689,000 investments, totalling over $1.6 billion globally. In its press release, DealMaker stated that Prime Trust considered several different crowdfunding platforms to refer its business to, but chose to work exclusively with DealMaker.
The acquisition of FundAmerica’s book of business marks the second move that DealMaker has made this year to grow its crowdfunding product. In March, DealMaker acquired Ridge Growth Agency, a digital investor acquisition agency that supports companies with their private placements.
Feature image courtesy DealMaker.