Building Bridges in the Global Startup Community

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Seedrs, the London-based crowd funding network with an international outlook, with investors and entrepreneurs from more than 60 countries using the platform, has partnered with a major Chinese venture capital (VC) firm for one of the largest international entrepreneurship competitions.

Seedrs Founder, Jeff Lynn, added: "IEIC [the China Innovation and Entrepreneurship International Competition] is building bridges amongst global startup communities and will be an invaluable experience to ambitious young business founders.

Applications for the IEIC are open until February 28, 2017. You can enter the competition here.

Read more.  Note:  Seedrs will be opening to American investors shortly.

The State of SME Finance in the United States

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The 2015 State of SME Finance in the United States reviews trends in lending and equity financing to SMEs, discusses emerging financing sources for SMEs, and assesses the future of SME finance in light of the rise of alternative, online lenders and crowdfunding platforms. The report also analyzes the specific financing issues faced by SMEs that seek growth through exports. 

Download the report here.

Companies Don't Need Scale to Trade Internationally; They Need International Trade to Scale

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Kati Suominen is founder and CEO of TradeUp Capital Fund, a new equity crowdfunding platform for globalizing companies, and of Nextrade Group, LLC, a consulting firm on leading-edge issues in trade. She is also Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Adjunct Professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and amid authoring her 10th book, on the future of globalization.

In the article, "Trading Up:  Being Small and Going Global," Kati Suominen says:

"No longer do companies need scale to trade; they need trade to scale. The next generation of exporters will be “born global companies.” Investors should pay attention to this outperforming asset class." 

She goes on to say that as the economy rebounds, companies around the world are seeking growth through exports.

Read the entire important article here.

Full disclosure:  I serve as a partner at TradeUp Capital Fund and on the Board of Directors; Kati serves on our Board of Advisors at GlobeTrade.com.  We think she is brilliant.  And you'll agree when you read her article above.