Los Angeles, CA, USA
California
North America
A new era of unique funding sources for beauty and other ventures has emerged. Crowd funding, which topped $5.1 billion in revenue raised worldwide in 2013 from sites such as Indiegogo.com, CrowedFunder.com and MicroVentures.com, has grown enormously. And media venues such as Shark Tank on ABC are also launching or helping successful businesses grow by joining those with money to the inventors and idea-people. Both models are fueled by three key factors: the project creator, an entrepreneur who proposes the idea, product, service or project; the funding source, either an individual or group who commit to fund and support the idea; and, in some cases a moderator, an organization or group that bonds the parties together to monitor or carry out the proposal and report on progress. Megan Gage, BIW's September 2014 speaker, was able to fund her growing business at a critical time through the vehicle of Shark Tank, when venture capitalist Mark Cuban decided to invest.