Wanna buy a piece of Pono

AFTER THE GOLD RUSH: Neil Young’s PonoMusic, which raised $6.2m on Kickstarter earlier this year, has launched another crowdfunding drive, but this time a pledge of $5k or more will get you a stake in the company, which is valuing itself at $50m. Pono hopes to raise at least $2.5m on the Crowdfunder site, and more than $1.4m has already been pledged this month, with the campaign due to end on 9/1. “We are already seeing that this is a growing trend, where companies who successfully run Kickstarter campaigns then want to give those backers a chance to invest through an equity crowdfunding campaign,” Crowdfunder CEO Chance Barnett told the Guardian. “This opens up a much bigger pool of capital for the company and also allows the people that are most passionate about the company—backers—the opportunity to invest.” (8/14a)