China mixes up crowdfunding and groupthink

Beijing

CHINA has taken crowdfunding and blended it liberally with groupthink. The country's Web users now have the chance to invest in startup businesses from dog groomers to portable underwear-washing machines. In some cases, innovative companies will thrive. In others, investors will see a short cut to riches, and companies will offload assets that they do not want to hold themselves. The flavour of crowdfunding with most potential in China is equity investment - essentially angel investing arranged online. The World Bank reckons that China could account for half the developing world's crowdfunding by 2015, or US$50 billion.

And even though draft rules on how it should work only emerged in December, providers have jumped in quickly. E-commerce site JD.com has its own platform; rival Alibaba's affiliate Ant Financial is about to launch one.