EquityNet Review

Pros

• Keep-whatever-you-raise funding
• No transaction fees — funds are collected offline
• Good customer support
• No prescreening

Cons

• Subscription required for investor access
• Offline funding can be inconvenient

What Is EquityNet?

EquityNet is an equity crowdfunding platform connecting businesses to investors. The company was founded in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 2005, years before the term “crowdfunding” became a buzzword. In fact, before the provisions of the JOBS Act were enacted in 2013 (thereby allowing companies to publicly solicit investors), EquityNet could only share companies’ pitches to investors privately.

Along with its crowdfunding platform, EquityNet also offers cloud software that allows you to build a business plan that will be viewable to investors and help them decide if your business is worth investing in. In fact, you don’t have to use EquityNet for fundraising at all — if you wish, you can just use the software to analyze and optimize your business planning. However, this review will focus on the crowdfunding aspect of EquityNet.

Services Offered By EquityNet

EquityNet is a subscription service, not a broker-dealer. This means that EquityNet does not directly facilitate the exchange of funds — rather, it provides a platform for businesses and investors to find each other. Investments are made offline by the parties themselves. This means that while the name of the site is EquityNet, you can seek loans from investors as well as equity investments. You could even seek a grant if you think that’s a possibility.

EquityNet provides a number of paid features to subscribers as well as some free features to non-paying subscribers. You’ll be able to set up and publish a business and funding profile as well as view summarized EquityNet investor profiles at no cost. You’ll also be able to “crowdcast” your business profile for free — “crowdcast” being a needlessly fancy term for emailing your business profile to your social media and email contacts.

If you subscribe to a paid plan, you’ll get access to more features, including investor activity tracking, expanded profile viewing, document uploads, business plan analysis, and more — which we’ll explore further along in this review.

Note that while you can attempt to raise funds on EquityNet for free, you won’t be able to contact EquityNet investors or upload your business plan for them to view. You’d essentially be getting to post your business profile in the hopes that an investor might stumble across it and fund you (again, any monetary transactions must be handled offline — EquityNet doesn’t deal with that side of things).

EquityNet Business Qualifications

EquityNet states entrepreneurs or business owners in any stage are on its platform. This includes everything from startups to businesses that bring in millions of dollars in annual revenue.

When you create a business profile and post it to EquityNet, it will appear immediately. There is no preapproval required. In order to connect with investors and take advantage of other premium features, you’ll have to sign up for a paid subscription.

EquityNet reserves the right to remove profiles, though there is no listed criteria for why the company would do so.

While this isn’t the type of platform you’d use for one-off fundraising for a creative project, the qualifications do make it suitable for businesses of all sizes that are ready to launch or expand. Overall, for business qualifications, we rate EquityNet 4.2/5 stars.

EquityNet Terms & Fees

Here are the terms and fees for EquityNet’s crowdfunding campaigns:

EquityNet’s Application Process

Getting your business profile up on EquityNet is easy and painless as there is no prescreening process. However, you will need to sign up for a paid subscription to upload a full business plan with supporting documents onto the site. To really attract the attention of investors on the site, you’ll have to open your wallet.

After your profile is on the platform, the time it takes to raise and receive funds varies. The company states that some businesses receive funding in days or weeks, while others may spend one year or longer in an attempt to raise funds. As we’ve previously mentioned, all funding is done offline.

Overall, the application process and getting your profile up on the website is relatively easy. The hard part is connecting with investors and raising funds. Overall, we give EquityNet a solid 4.3/5 in this category.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

EquityNet makes it clear that it is not a registered broker-dealer and, therefore, does not handle financial transactions between investors and investees. The company also provides plenty of information about its services and provides easy-to-find links for Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Risk Factors.

There’s nothing gimmicky about EquityNet’s website, and there are no red flags that we noted during our review. In terms of sales and advertising transparency, EquityNet definitely gets it right, earning a near-perfect 4.9/5.

Customer Service & Technical Support

EquityNet’s primary form of getting in touch is through a contact form for email support. At the time of our last review, a phone number was available to call for assistance. Unfortunately, this no longer appears to be an option, although this may differ for paid subscribers.

EquityNet does provide a comprehensive FAQ page that answers many questions across categories including security, creating a business profile, and using business plan analysis software. There is a company blog, and EquityNet has social media profiles on Facebook, X/Twitter, and LinkedIn that are updated on a fairly regular basis.

There are no complaints from users online about the quality of customer support.

For customer service and tech support, we rate EquityNet 4.2/5 stars.

User Reviews

EquityNet doesn’t have much of a user review footprint online, though there are scattered user reviews and a number of professional reviews for the service. EquityNet receives a rating of 4.5/5 (based on four reviews) from Sitejabber and 5/5 (based on two reviews) from SourceForge.

Overall, we give EquityNet a 4.4/5 for user reviews, although we hope to see more for EquityNet in the future.

Negative Reviews & Complaints

Some criticisms include:

• Costs can be expensive for investment seekers, especially if your funding campaign doesn’t pan out
• Offline funding has been criticized, with reviewers questioning whether retail investors know enough to do the due diligence necessary to make successful investments
• Profiles require some work to be platform-ready

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

Positive reviews praised EquityNet for the following:

• Good business plan software
• Flat fees are cheaper than platform fees for businesses that successfully raise funds
• Helpful customer support

Is EquityNet Right For Your Business?

EquityNet pairs a solid business plan creation/analysis package with a crowdfunding platform that pairs entrepreneurs with investors looking to make equity and/or debt investments in emerging companies. It’s a novel and innovative idea and one that holds appeal for a wide array of small businesses and startups.

That said, if you want to take full advantage of what’s on offer and maximize your chances of funding success, the platform isn’t cheap. Nor is it terribly convenient, as the actual investing doesn’t take place via the website — you and the investor(s) will have to work it out.

Overall, EquityNet scores 4.3/5. While not for every business, it can meet the needs of entrepreneurs ready to launch or grow their businesses.

Entrepreneurs looking into equity crowdfunding should know that it is a trickier field to navigate than rewards crowdfunding, what with all the legal issues involved. However, having helped over 1,000 businesses raise money from investors, EquityNet is worth a closer look if equity crowdfunding fits into your grand plan.

Our Methodology

We spend hours researching and evaluating each crowdfunding platform that we review at Merchant Maverick, placing emphasis on key characteristics to generate our product ratings.

When rating crowdfunding platforms, we use a rubric that looks at terms and fees, project qualifications, application process, sales and advertising transparency, customer service, and user reviews. We weigh each section differently to calculate the total star rating.

• Terms & Fees: 25% of the total star rating
• Project Qualifications: 25% of the total star rating
• Application Process: 25% of the total star rating
• Sales & Advertising Transparency: 10% of the total star rating
• Customer Service: 10% of the total star rating
• User Reviews: 5% of the total star rating

Each section is further broken down into granular, weighted subsections, in which we look at specific attributes, such as campaign durations, supported project types, time to funding, application processing times, and platform fees. Learn more about how we rate crowdfunding platforms.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

EquityNet	Apply Now

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see EquityNet for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

EquityNet	Apply Now

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see EquityNet for yourself.