Tapping into Crowd Power with Website Finance

(Beijing) – Investing like an angel now costs no more than an average duck dinner in Beijing.

The force driving China's growing ranks of small-scale angel investors are crowdfunding websites, which offer individuals access to business financing pools for as little as 100 yuan each.

But these websites are operating in a regulatory gray area in China. And investors are called to give money for flimsy returns: In one case, they were rewarded for their financial backing with scarves in lieu of cash.