No need to be a millionaire
Fig has had a bit of a rocky start as a crowdfunding platform. It is much more selective about its campaigns than Kickstarter or Indiegogo, so it has only featured two campaigns since its launch in August.Outer Wildsjust barely made its goal of $125,000 andAnchors in the Driftonly managed to make about 21% of its goal of $500,000.
Today, Fig announced a slight tweak in its terms, which might allow its next campaign perform better. Funding on Fig is broken up into two sources. Backers function like they do on other crowdfunding platforms: users who want the game and possibly some extras can put in small amounts of money to receive rewards. Investors are what make Fig unique: accredited investors can put in large sums of money (at least $1,000) and instead of receiving traditional rewards they stand to make a profit if the product sells well.
However, for an investor to be accredited, he or she must have a yearly salary of at least $200,000 or a $1,000,000 net worth. Basically, Fig investment has been gated to just the wealthy. For its next campaign, that changes.
Now unaccredited investors will be able to pitch in money and hope for a return, pending an SEC ruling. For the upcoming campaign the minimum is still $1,000, but a maximum of $10,000 has been instituted for unaccredited investors. Fig CEOJustin Baileyexplains of the inclusion of unaccredited investors, “This is important because we don’t feel that there should be a class distinction between fans and investors. Our belief is that fans and investors are one in the same —they are individuals who lend financial support to make a project possible, and they should all have an opportunity to participate financially. Now they can.”
