BANKERS ARE CONSERVATIVE types. It is hard to imagine any of them jumping at the opportunity presented by Ryan Grepper, an Oregon-based “part visionary, part mad scientist, and a passionate supporter of the DIY revolution”, to lend him $50,000 to develop an oversized picnic cooler. Not just any cooler, mind you, but The Coolest, which beyond keeping drinks chilled also blends them, blares music and recharges gadgets. But what bankers would surely have disdained, the public seized with gusto: last August Mr Grepper raised $13.3m from Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform, over 250 times what he had asked for. None of the money he has received will ever need to be repaid, either. Instead, the first 63,380 coolers he makes will go to the backers who put up around $180 each, with luck in time for the summer picnic season. A few will be hand-delivered by Mr Grepper, who offered personally to man the party bar for anyone who pledged $2,000 to his venture.
Financing small businesses is rarely this colourful. A few consumer-friendly ventures like The Coolest aside, corporate minnows have been struggling to raise money in recent years. The buoyant bond...
from The Economist: Special report http://ift.tt/1cr2X7B
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