Ultrasound wireless charging startup uBeam, backed by a16z, Marissa Mayer, Founders Fund, others, closes $2.6M of $4.7M goal on crowdfunding platform OurCrowd
Garrett Reim / Los Angeles Business Journal : Tweets: @joshconstine and @joshconstine Tweets: Josh Constine / @joshconstine : There are low-quality, dumb money crowdfunders out there, but OurCrowd has 50+ diligence team, futuretech portfolio http://techcrunch.com/... Josh Constine / @joshconstine : uBeam raise via curated crowdfund tied to top Israeli techies could boost its platform, yet LAT frames as desperate? http://www.techmeme.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Earlier in 2015, sources reported uBeam was shopping a ~$50M Series B at a $500M+ valuation — so a $4.7M curated-crowdfunding target, of which it has closed $2.6M on OurCrowd, reads as a steep downshift in round size even with a16z, Founders Fund, and Marissa Mayer already on the cap table.
The framing fight matters here: TechCrunch's Josh Constine argues OurCrowd's 50-plus-person diligence team separates it from 'low-quality' crowdfunders, while the Los Angeles Business Journal frames the raise as a possible sign of distress — and OurCrowd's own growth track (a $72M Series C in late 2016) shows the platform was scaling into exactly this kind of marquee deal.
First-order effects
- uBeam banks $2.6M against a $4.7M target — roughly an order of magnitude below the Series B it was reportedly seeking months earlier — buying runway without a new priced lead.
- OurCrowd gets a flagship consumer-hardware deal with blue-chip VC and celebrity-angel names attached, which it can use to market its vetting model to investors.
Second-order effects
- If a heavily backed hardware startup turns to curated equity crowdfunding after a stalled institutional round, OurCrowd's competitors in the space face pressure to land similar brand-name deals to prove their platforms aren't second-tier money.
- Other VC-backed hardware companies watching uBeam gain a template: a curated crowdfund as a bridge or top-up when a priced Series B slips.
Third-order effects
- Diligence-heavy equity platforms like OurCrowd could carve out a durable role between angel syndicates and venture funds — absorbing startups that miss priced-round expectations rather than letting them die, which blurs who counts as 'institutional' capital.
- The pattern, if it holds, pushes hardware and deep-tech fundraising toward mixed-cap-table structures where retail-accredited money fills gaps left by VCs, raising questions about how valuations set in hype cycles get marked down in public-facing rounds.
The trend: Curated equity crowdfunding is emerging as a bridge-financing channel for VC-backed hardware startups whose institutional rounds fall short, with platforms like OurCrowd competing on diligence rigor to win those deals.