Not Sorry To Disrupt

Equity Crowdfunding: Next Generation of Angel Investors Is Not Sorry to Disrupt

by Victoria Silchenko, HuffPost

If you agree with me that the Internet is based on trust, compassion and transparency (think Facebook, Wikipedia or Yelp), you will recognize that the crowd investors are not the investors in a traditional sense we are used to thinking of. These are the people who would make their due diligence from the customer or human point of view rather than from a pure financial return. They would like to get involved (how about becoming a shareholder of a new gym?). They would embrace a sense of fairness (dare to "like" the company that outsources its operations to some sweatshop in China? The Facebook troops are marching already).

Something very wrong happened when investing in private companies became available for very few people who would, in a way, eventually try to "crowdfund" their ventures by going public. Ultimately, it has all become about exit strategies instead of healthy cash flows (aka dividends) that healthy business would be capable to deliver to its shareholders. View Full Story

Victoria Silchenko is an economist turned entrepreneur who devotes much of her time to helping other entrepreneurs succeed. She is the founder & CEO of Metropole Capital Group which she launched in 2004 in Los Angeles, CA to provide strategic and capital formation advisory services to venture capital-backed startups and other emerging growth and innovative companies in a broad range of industries throughout the U.S. and Russia/BRIC. Victoria strongly believes in ethical conduct of any business and actively supports solving market needs in the most intelligent, innovative and socially responsible way.

She is also the producer and director of the Metropole Global Forumwww.metropoleglobal.com – an annual Next Generation Entrepreneurship and Crowdfunding Forum in Los Angels which is a full day event in November and is an unprecedented and exclusive gathering of world class entrepreneurs, angel investors, VCs, accelerators, and crowdfunding experts and advocates from the United States and all over the globe.

Victoria Silchenko

Victoria is also the chair of Global LAVA group, a strategic interest group of the Los Angeles Venture Association (www.lava.org), the oldest LA area non-profit that supports entrepreneurship and innovations. Victoria initiated and launched Global LAVA group in 2011 on a mission to unite entrepreneurs, business executives, and capital providers interested in leveraging the existing global marketplace’s opportunities and capital sources for companies based in Southern California and came up with the group’s motto “Think Outside The States”. Under her leadership over a short period of time, Global LAVA has evolved into a preeminent monthly forum of international entrepreneurship and foreign direct investment for the entire greater Los Angeles area and beyond.

Dr. Silchenko is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship and financing & growth strategies for early stage companies at numerous seminars and international conferences including the Association of Corporate Growth (United States), LAVA (United States), Horasis: The Global Visions Community (Luxemburg) and other events.

Victoria formerly held an analytical position at the Milken Institute, a leading Southern California economic “think - tank” managed by Michael Milken. Previously, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher directly with Dr. Arthur Laffer, (former economic advisor to President Reagan) at Laffer Investments, an economic research and consulting firm.

Dr. Silchenko holds degrees in Economics and Finance from the State University of Demidov (1997) and a Ph.D. in Economics from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (2000). Additionally, she completed her coursework in Financial Modeling, Business Valuation, and Business Strategies at the University of California San Diego, and she holds a Certificate in Recognition of Satisfying the Requirements for the Advanced Management and Business Program from San Diego State University.

In her spare time Victoria likes to read philosophy, play piano, paint and write poetry. Her recently published poetry book, “No Limits: Modern Poetry For Modern People,” is available now on Amazon.