Ringelman: Traditional gatekeeper financing locks out audience demand
Danae Ringelman · 93 Rejections, One Revolution: How Indiegogo Changed Crowdfunding Forever · Dec 15, 2025 · at 15:22
Danae Ringelman, co-founder of Indiegogo, explains how failing to fund an off-Broadway play despite a standing ovation revealed the structural inequity of capital gatekeepers.
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“And that was the moment that I realized that there was A huge room of people that wanted this thing to happen, yet they didn't have the power to make it happen, and it was all dependent on one person to say yes. And that was the inequity that drove me to eventually start Indiegogo.”
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“Philosophically, we couldn't become the gatekeeper. Otherwise, what's the point of all of this?”
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“We also did explore, is there any SEC loopholes we could get around? So at the, and when we were first starting, we were actually, we're thinking investments, like full on investment.”
Indiegogo co-founders each committed $30,000 of their own money to launch
“I remember each of us committing 30,000 dollars of our own money, which was a big chunk of our savings, or at least for me.”
Danae Ringelman's original business school idea was a democratic voting fund
“What drove me back to business school was to start something that would make the funding process more democratic. And my initial idea was a fund, actually, with a democratic twist. Where the investors could be lots of people putting a little bit in. And then t…”