Have you ever heard of Naval Ravikant?
Most folks haven’t—not yet, anyway.
But if you’re an ordinary investor with dreams of hitting it big, this programmer from India might play a starring role in your financial future.
You see, not once, not twice, but three times in the past few months, Naval has helped individual investors like you cash in on hugely profitable investments.
Today, I’ll tell you more about Naval and how he’s helping the little guy get ahead.
Then I’ll show you how to get in on his next jackpot.
A Success Story—Born in India
Naval was born in India.
When he was nine, he and his family moved to America, relying on public assistance to get by.
A diligent student, Naval was accepted into New York City’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School. He continued his studies at Dartmouth, where he worked as a dishwasher to help pay his bills.
After graduation, he headed to Silicon Valley. Eventually he started a company called Epinions, and it ended up being acquired for millions of dollars.
Once he had a few dollars in his pocket—and once he had maneuvered his way into Silicon Valley’s inner circle—Naval started investing in other entrepreneur’s early-stage ventures. Some of his early winners include Facebook, Twitter and Uber.
Yes, Naval has done very well for himself, but he never forgot his roots…
Democratizing Start-up Investing
Naval didn’t think it was right that only the wealthiest and most-connected investors could get access to the best private deals in Silicon Valley.
He envisioned a more democratic system, a system where all investors could take advantage of the profit potential and excitement of start-up investing.
Eventually, he became one of the key figures who helped pass the JOBS Act »
This is the new set of laws that’s finally allowing everyone to invest in start-ups, regardless of their wealth or personal network.
But Naval didn’t stop there...
He also founded a website called AngelList.
AngelList is one of the world’s first “equity crowdfunding” platforms »
These funding platforms play “matchmaker” between entrepreneurs seeking funding and investors looking for early-stage investment opportunities.
And not only was Naval’s platform one of the first, it’s also one of the best.
The Three Biggest Deals of Summer
To show you what I mean, look at three of this summer’s biggest deals:
As I wrote about last month, a start-up called Dollar Shave Club was acquired in July by Unilever for $1 billion.
Dollar Shave Club’s early investors made an estimated 166x their money.
Most of those investors were professional venture capitalists—but some of them were individual investors like you.
To raise money from individuals, Dollar Shave Club used AngelList.
It was the same story for a start-up called Cruise Automation: most of Cruise’s investors were professional investors, but some were ordinary investors like you.
Just like Dollar Shave Club, Cruise leveraged AngelList. And when the company was acquired by General Motors for $1 billion, those investors made 1,011% on their money in just six months.
And it was the same story once again for a start-up called Authy:
Before it got gobbled up by Twilio (which went public in June and currently has a market cap of nearly $5 billion), it offered shares to investors like you on AngelList.
This summer’s three hottest deals—and AngelList was involved in all of them.
AngelList: Quality Deals For All
With AngelList, Naval broke down the walls of start-up investing so people from outside Silicon Valley could get involved in this lucrative corner of the market.
At the moment, however, you still need to be a wealthy investor to take advantage of most of its deals.
But as Wayne wrote about last month, with Naval’s blessing, a group of former AngeList executives recently launched a new equity crowdfunding platform.
It features AngelList-quality deals, but on this platform, anyone can invest:
In fact, many of the start-ups it features have minimum investments of less than $100.
So stay tuned, because tomorrow, Wayne will tell you about one of those deals…
Best Regards,
Founder
Crowdability.com
