The site, which at one time claimed 10,000 registered users, relies on membership fees as well as fees for matching entrepreneurs with investors or lenders. In the private equity realm, a marketmaker is a Website that acts as a placement agent. In that role, its site actively markets a proposed private equity offering to qualified investors and raises the money for an emerging company. The marketmaker gets from 4 percent to 7 percent of the gross proceeds of the private equity financing as a fee. The deal was contingent on a restructuring that required the firm to lay off 41 employees, or about one-third of its staff.
Some observers believe they are snagging second-tier deals.
The hard part is growing the company. Reyes indicated venture firms are probably passing over some deals and that the online players are filling in the funding gaps. In any given week, we probably have 10 companies make presentations to us. Enough business to go around' At least one entrepreneur found the online alternative helpful. We assumed that these people might actually understand art and the concept of selling a luxury item such as art.