NEW YORK CITY-GroundBreaker, a crowdfunding platform expressly for real estate entrepreneurs, has opened to public use, GlobeSt.com has learned exclusively. Backed by Cornell University, the platform aims to help CRE entrepreneurs capitalize on the SEC's more lenient stance on general solicitations, and has already been utilized for nine private beta projects across the US.

Founder Joseph Jelinek says he started GroundBreaker “after trying to launch my own mission-driven real estate venture. After seeing my visionary architecture friends struggle as well, I decided to build GroundBreaker. I love what Kickstarter is doing to empower artists, so I decided to do the same for architects, engineers, and real estate design junkies while also giving them additional resources and support.”

While open to almost all entrepreneurs in this space, the platform does require them to begin with their own network and grow it organically rather than solely soliciting strangers for funds. It offers listing criteria, but Jelinek points out that the company does not curate projects on the platform.

“Given our experience and deep understanding of real estate, securities, law, crowdfunding and technology, we help entrepreneurs better navigate the fundraising process and customize a white-label solution to match entrepreneur's specific fundraising needs,” he says. “For some this might be technical tools only, while for others it could be advice and deal structuring as well.”

Jelinek built Morgan Stanley's mortgage buying, financed more than $14 billion in real estate projects at Morgan Stanley and CBRE, and constructed $450 million in design and green driven projects at ZOM. He studied architecture at Columbia and entrepreneurship at Cornell.

Also on the GroundBreaker team is securities lawyer Stefano D'Aniello, who focused his career on advising companies at White & Case and overseeing $54 billion in banking and broker-dealer operations at BBVA, Spain's second largest bank. There are also Alex Jelinek, who was instrumental in developing beta versions of Google Maps, and has project- and product-managed more than 50 mobile and web products at companies such as DeCarta and IBM; and Jacob Hofer, who has more than 10 years' experience designing, building, and managing enterprise-class applications for both B2C and B2B products at SugarCRM and Cisco Systems, among other companies.

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Instant Insights /

Platform Brings Crowdfunding to CRE Entrepreneurs

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