Ryan Rafols, courtesy photo

Newchip, the online platform that aggregates crowdfunding deals, announced recently that it has closed on $2 million in seed funding.

Austin-based Newchip also launched an equity-based crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder. It has already raised $102,000 of its $1 million goal from 84 investors. Wefunder is an equity-based crowdfunding platform that lets people invest as little as $100 into a company.

Newchip doesn’t run a crowdfunding platform, but aggregates campaigns from other platforms on its site and categorizes them by investment type and more. It’s like the Kayak of crowdfunding, said Ryan Rafols, its founder and Chief Executive Officer. Newchip has more than 20 platform partners and more than 50,000 users on its platform.

“We’ve helped Austin become one of the biggest cities in getting deals backed,” Rafols said.

Newchip, founded in June of 2016, saw an opportunity to create an investment marketplace aggregator for everyone. It officially launched at South by Southwest in 2017, Rafols said.

“This is angel investing for everyone,” Rafols said.

Before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved equity-based crowdfunding in 2015, only accredited investors or high net worth individuals, could invest in startups at the early stage.

Newchip recently closed on $2 million in seed stage funding with institutional investment from JadeValue, SputnikATX, Youbi Capital, and Polymath.
Newchip held a kickoff event at Barile downtown last week to launch its first equity-based crowdfunding campaign. The company has ten employees.

“Newchip is bringing massive value to the industry and we love the team, they are helping democratize investing in high-growth startups,” Joe Merrill, partner with SputnikATX said in a news release. “There are hundreds of crowd investing platforms and that’s why aggregating them into a single market is such a revolutionary idea.”

“By aggregating investment opportunities into a single platform, it makes it easier for everyday Americans to build a diverse portfolio and find investments they believe in and can back in exchange for equity,” according to Newchip. “Also, Newchip recently opened its marketplace to blockchain and securitized tokens and is continually adding in new sectors, categories, and hundreds of investment opportunities each month. “