In June, Honeycomb Credit closed a $6 million Seed+ round to push a nationwide expansion. One of the company's immediate focuses for that money was to complete development of a mobile phone application, which is now available.
Honeycomb Credit is a crowdfunding platform that was launched in Pittsburgh in 2017. Unlike other crowdfunding platforms, such as Kickstarter or GoFundMe, Honeycomb repays its investors. CEO and co-founder George Cook has said that the goal is to "prove" a "new asset class."
Over 400 businesses across 38 states have successfully raised over $30 million dollars from a network of 18,000 users. So far, more than $7.5 million has been repaid.
"We're incredibly excited to offer this app to our growing community of investors," Cook said in a prepared statement. "It's all about making it easier for people to invest in the businesses they believe in and watch those businesses thrive."
A large number of those businesses are in the Pittsburgh area. For example, small batch soup business Brothmonger raised almost $100,000 earlier this year and went on to secure a physical location in Bloomfield.
Cook previously said to the Business Times that "very few people talk about Main Street small businesses as an investable asset class" and that because of that "we're chronically underinvesting in these incredibly impactful businesses that can make our communities really vibrant." He said that the mobile application will help with the rollout because it will streamline the user experience.
"With the mobile application that's rolling out you can walk into a [coffee shop] in real time, get alerted about them raising money and immediately invest while you're waiting for your latte," Cook told the Business Times in June.
