Neil Young’s first act as PonoMusic CEO has been to launch another round of crowdfunding, but this time not on Kickstarter. His company raised $6.2m from pre-orders of its PonoPlayer gadget on that site earlier in the year, but this time round it’s working with the US-based Crowdfunder website to raise at least another $2.5m. The twist: people ponying up at least $5,000 there will get actual equity in PonoMusic. “We are already seeing that this is a growing trend, where companies who successfully run Kickstarter campaigns then want to give those backers a chance to invest through an equity crowdfunding campaign,” Crowdfunder boss Chance Barnett told The Guardian, highlighting a recent crowdfunding controversy as a good reason. “Oculus sold to Facebook for $2bn after raising millions via Kickstarter. Those who backed Oculus never got the opportunity to invest, and there was a significant backlash when it was sold. Pono isn’t making that mistake with the music community.” By this morning, the campaign had already exceeded its initial goal, which has now been upped to $4m.
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