Deep in the financial crisis, entrepreneurs have regained control and start to finance themselves without using the usual tracks to do so. And they succeed! Slowly, networks start to get an impact on personal and business finance.As one of the pioneers in the Crowdfunding domain, Tom Vroemen sheds ...
Deep in the financial crisis, entrepreneurs have regained control and start to finance themselves without using the usual tracks to do so. And they succeed! Slowly, networks start to get an impact on personal and business finance.
As one of the pioneers in the Crowdfunding domain, Tom Vroemen sheds light on the way how clients, locals, fans, friends and family of entrepreneurs can take the role of bankers. He explains how entrepreneurs can collect capital successfully from their network, en how this capital is more than just money. He illustrates the thin line between entrepreneurship and failure and show what works and what not.
Network finance is about more than the gathering of capital. Entrepreneurs that finance using their network showed that they can count on involvement of clients and see a positive development of their turnover: “It is surprising how far away we have sought our stakeholders, whereas we can have the most from our closest environment.”
Using real examples from our local society, the new finance is explained. We start to understand that trading shares on a stock exchange, or investing in large funds take away the role of the individual in our society. Why not invest in the bakery just around the corner? Or in that company that produces this great gifts you present to everybody? Those are the companies of which you can tell how they perform. Tom opens eyes by showing the large gap between entrepreneurs and local society, and how they are rediscovering each other. What does this mean for individuals and investors? And where are the opportunities for financial institutions?
The world of finance and investing finds itself at the beginning of a paradigm-shift. We move from bundling and control to trust, self-understanding and empowerment. That is what it is all about, isn’t it?
Tom Vroemen (1985) is co-founder and Managing Director of CrowdAboutNow, the first crowdfunding company that enabled everyone to invest small amounts in companies that you use in normal life. The team of CrowdAboutNow operates in a field where classic market parties find it hard to operate: Venture financing below €150.000. Aside of that, the company knows how to bring more life to small investments than ever considered possible. Although it is a young start-up, their successes are considered more and more significant. Banks now search for cooperation and politicians embrace the concept.
Tom frequently speaks about crowdfunding, venture finance, investments, entrepreneurship and innovation. Hij surprises his audience with his analysis of financial and societal developments and the remarkable stories of entrepreneurs they funded. His stories fit seamless in your experience and he likes to engage and interact sharply with the audience. Tom has university degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Organization and Strategy.
“Lisanne’s keynote clearly demonstrated the impact AI can have and illustrated, by means of films, case-studies and art projects, that we need to think about futures that align nature, people and technology as equal partners. It was a perfect keynote that matched perfectly the theme of the 2023 FilmEU Summit!”
We had the pleasure to have Mr. Tom Vroemen as a speaker for our yearly event on Crowdfunding in May 2011. The event attracted more then 30 high level finance professionals and crowdfunding platform owners in Brussels. At that time it was still a very new topic and very complex environment to explain to the audience. Nevertheless, the explanations, the facts and figures that Tom delivered were very clear and brought a new insight to the audience. I remember our invitees were very positively surprised to learn again so many new aspects of small companies and start-ups financing.
Tom proved very knowledgeable about finance, regulation and crowdfunding. He was an extremely accurate speaker with a good sense for talking to large audience. He also was very approachable and has done some very clear explanations to some participants as a complement to his intervention. We remember Tom as someone very dynamic and a true expert in his field. All participants enjoyed his intervention; and he was speaking along with one of the global leaders in the field of start-up financing with equal ease and relevance.