This is pretty neat. The Genesis Exchange calls itself a “private equity exchange”. Sort of like a platform where private companies can issue securities, and investors can buy them, presumably under applicable registration and prospectus exemption rules. That being said, it seems to be less a trading platform than it is an introduction and screening system of sorts. Companies who want to raise funds complete a profile through which their “Genesis Score” is calculated. Angel investors then set a minimum score and only receive info about companies with scores above that.
Not necessarily a new concept (other than perhaps the Genesis Score) but of course could be useful nonetheless. That being said, I’m not necessarily sure how well this score thing would work – I mean, it certainly could, but I have my doubts about whether any model can simply boil a business down to number that is used to screen – if that were the case, then you’d likely see a lot of VCs exiting the industry fairly quickly.
Certainly worthwhile investigating, though of course anyone looking for private equity dollars should also of course look into things like the Toronto Venture Group (as well as the Toronto Angel Group) which try to do the same thing in meatspace and without a one number score…