The process of how companies raise capital is changing.

Digital platforms are becoming a force in raising capital.

This is a durable trend changing the face of financial services.

For example,

Kickstarter.com has raised $4.8 billion for a variety of companies.

Cadre.com has generated $2.5 billion in commercial real estate transactions.

YieldStreet.com returned $100 million in interest payments and $500 million in principal to t investors. They recently partnered with BlackRock to offer high yield fund.

We all remember when Carl Icahn increased Apple’s market cap by $17 billion with a couple of tweets

Icahn used his celebrity-investor status and the Twitter platform to distribute his price forecast.

The media and financial world jumped on board with him.

Apple’s market cap exploded.

Digital media long ago surpassed television as a way to generate broad investor attention,

CNBC gets roughly 152,000 daily viewers.

That’s over a 24-hour period.

How many investors are watching at any given time?

Twenty thousand? Fifty?

And of those how many are actively watching vs. letting it play in the background?

Financial publishing and digital media are disrupting the capital raising world.

For example, in just the last 12 months:

A small uranium company raised roughly $40 million when featured by publisher, Katusa Research.

Investors oversubscribed the round by double after Katusa sent two emails to readers.

Angels & Entrepreneurs Network is a private placement newsletter with nearly 80,000 subscribers. The A&EN reader base is one of the largest angel networks in the country.

 Companies they’ve featured filled $1 million crowdfunding rounds several times a month. Often in as little as 24 hours.

Featured companies with Reg A deals have seen raises of around $8 million.

Private placement newsletters are becoming more common.

We’ve seen companies recently raise as much as $30 million when featured in other newsletters.

Several years ago, one publisher of an energy focused private placement service featured four separate companies to their subscribers in one year.

Altogether, those four companies raised in the neighborhood of $120 million.

All because an investment newsletter featured their story.

This is a durable trend.

I’ve seen financial media startups raise up to $10 million in a series b simply by emailing their own customers.

Goldman Sachs understood this early and built a bespoke media channel.

The iconic Wall Street firm created its own publishing arm, Goldman Sachs Insights.

The firm even publishes a weekly e-letter, Goldman Sachs Briefings.

They consider it important enough that CEO hosts his own regular show.

In other words, content marketing is an executive responsibility at Goldman Sachs.

They, too, recognize the importance of having a media platform.

The reality is: The power of media within financial is on the rise.

Developing a media presence and syndicating messaging across multiple platforms allows:

Startups to raise more capital.

Public companies to get their story in front of broader segments of both institutional and retail investors.

Funds to raise more capital from both institutional and retail investors.

Investment banks to dramatically expand their reach into the corporate world.

In short, digital media adds leverage to all of your external business development activities