Why This Crowdfunder Is Focusing on Retailers

Riginals is a 25-year-old children’s boutique at Westfield Century City.

LOS ANGELES—EquityEats, a Washington DC-based crowdfunding platform, has closed its first Los Angeles deal with Riginals, a 25-year-old children’s boutique at the Century City mall. The crowdfunder uniquely focuses on restaurants, and this is the firm’s first consumer brand client. Riginals is looking to raise money to redesign its shop as part of the $800 million redevelopment of the mall.

We successfully crowdfunded the first restaurant in the country, Prequel in Washington DC, and developed an app to help us keep in touch with our investors,” Dan Benavidez, business development at EquityEats, tells GlobeSt.com. “We feel like our app technology and infrastructure are more suited for raising money for restaurants and retail industry companies because they have the same loyal followings and similar needs for customer tracking.  The demand in these industries is great, with EquityEats only accepting four to five of the companies that come to us.”