The Fintech Focus: Today In Crowdfunding News: Crowdfunding A Laser Razor, Crowdfunding An Obesity Drug, and Crowdfunding Solar Business, brought to you by PICISI.com

$4 million laser razor gets zapped by Kickstarter

A crowdfunding campaign for a futuristic razor that was suspended from Kickstarter after raising more than $4 million found a new home on Indiegogo on Tuesday.

Skarp Technologies' laser razor, a product that promises to end the reign of the traditional razor, had more than 20,000 backers on Kickstarter, but officials failed to provide the crowdfunding site with enough evidence of a working prototype.

Projects seeking to fund prototypes are allowed, so long as creators do not offer the finished product as a perk.

"We encourage creators to bring early-stage and ambitious ideas to Kickstarter, as those are often the ideas that are most in need of support," a spokesman from Kickstarter told CNBC. "But we require that, from the beginning, backers are given a realistic sense of where the project stands in the development process."

That technical violation caused the campaign to be shut down.

Philadelphia Business Journal

Obestity drug developer just makes $30K crowdfunding goal
Philadelphia Business Journal

Symmetry Therapeutics achieved its goal of raising $30,000 — with just $133 to spare — via a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the Philadelphia-based startup’s research into new therapies to treat obesity.

[read more here: http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2015/10/13/obestity-drug-symmetry-therapeutics-30k-indiegogo.html]

United PV Turns to Crowdfunding After Stocks in China Plunge

Bloomberg

United Photovoltaics Group Ltd., a Chinese solar-farm operator, said it will use crowdfunding to raise money for its investment after the crash in stock prices in the nation made traditional fundraising more difficult.

The company plans to “distribute solar farms as bank products to thousands of households," Chief Executive Officer Alan Li said in an interview in Beijing. "It’s a concept of crowdfunding and will be completed under the banking system."

United PV, whose shares have lost half their value since peaking in June, is seeking to finish the fund raising effort by the end of this year, Li said. The Hong Kong-based company is in talks with several banks about the logistics needed to make it happen, he said. He declined to name the banks or discuss how much he’s seeking to raise.