Depends on an 'investment provider'. If there is a question "to trust or not" then it's a wrong company.
Ideally, an investment platform must not touch one's money at all. It just should connect you with opportunities and
make sure everyone's playing fair. Like in supermarket where you choose products, it has nothing to do with trust.

With regards to BTC volatility, it shouldn't matter: if you invest in something real it will have value anyway. Like for example at TipTopfund where you invest BTC to invest in tech startups: you get a real share in a company that owns a startup
and as the business develops its value grows.

Hi Iranus, thanks for the reply and your advice.

90% success rate and information about level of expertise comes from my own professional experience rather than from the project. I've been researching online investing since 'e-gold times' (not sure if anyone remembers that though ) and been always curious how to create an online project that would be rewarding, easy to use and interesting for usual people. I tried both online and offline investing and I can say my personal success rate has been close to 90%, and this is not me but the approach I use. I do need to elaborate on that though so this can be more understandable for visitors.

A comparison with usual investments was needed to show the difference between investment funds (one may google 'startup investment fund' to find hundreds of them IN the USA, Canada, Europe etc) and TTF. And the difference does exist:
- Minimum amount $50 Those funds manage big portfolios and they're not interested in retail investors. TipTopFund is concentrated exactly on retail investors this is why we can afford management of small investments;
- Exit any time. With investment funds one can sell their portfolio when there is a good offer like company acquisition, IPO etc. With TipTopFund startups grow dynamically which is immediately reflected in their share price. This allows everyone to sell shares at any time.
- Safety is something I'm proud of. It is impossible to trust anyone in the internet, therefore a successful project must be completely transparent and controlled. This is why we collect funds on an escrow multisig account where even the escrow cannot take money from. And this is why the funds collected go directly to a company that provides services for our startup. Things like: "we need $20k on an advertising campaign" don't work at TipTopFund, instead there will be several stages, each stage will have a measurable and understandable goal and if a goal is not achieved the next stage does not come. 100% control for every penny.

Hope it's not too boring to read all of that but I had to respond Thanks for your comments and suggestions, will think how to implement them.

Recently I launched a platform that lets tech startups run crowdfunding campaigns for bitcoin. It works with escrow and it is very safe for investors to deal with those startups:

- nobody touches investors' money: collected via escrow it goes directly to developers;
- stage by stage investing: a startup slowly but steadily receives funding and gains value;
- investors become co-founders of each startup;
- minimum amount 0.05 btc;
- trade shares you own online as their value changes.

Here is the link to the website https://www.tiptopfund.com/
The link to my thread here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1840814.0

 

Мы занимаемся поиском инвестиций для подобных проектов, здесь все детали
https://www.tiptopfund.com/lp-funding/

Investing in a tech startup can be very rewarding. For example, you can choose a startup at this platform where bitcoin is accepted http://www.tiptopfund.com/product/thesyndicus/

I've received some feedback on my project and I'm happy to provide answers for the whole community.

- Poor quality of photos/texts/materials on the website.

We're on beta version, it is clearly indicated on the website. While all necessary features present, some glitches are still possible.
Do us a favor, let us know what we can improve, we'll be happy to get better. Bear with us, the launch day was yesterday!

- How do I know this isn't just a complicated or elaborate Ponzi scheme?

Easy - nobody holds any money. Let me explain how we work.

A start-up needs money to develop its product, they need $1500 for incorporation, $10,000 for website and $15,000 to hire cool sales team. They're generous enough to give 5% for this money, $1,500+$10,000+$15,000=$26,500. We start fundraising at https://www.TipTopFund.com by selling shares, say, at 0.05 btc per share. Thus, to pass the 1st stage and incorporate the company we need to sell 30 shares.

An investor buys 1 share and pays 0.05 etc to a multisig escrow account maintained by http://www.EscrowMyBits.com. Not TipTopFund, nor the start-up touch any money. If we don't sell 30 shares within a certain time period the stage has not completed and everyone takes their money back from the escrow. Well, minus 1%, this is what EscrowMyBits earns. If we do sell 30 shares the escrow releases the funds and the start-up initiates incorporation. The money is released either directly to a company that provides legal service or, if they don't accept bitcoin, we sell bitcoin and pay that company.

Incorporation process is transparent as everyone may check status of the company online. TipTopFund acts as a trustee for all investors, it joins the board as a co founder and for $1500 we get 0.28% in the that company. Stage 1 completed.

Stage 2 begins, now we raise $10,000. This time we have web developers who agree to do the job and take bitcoin as a payment. So when we successfully sell the next portion of shares to collect that amount the money goes directly to the web developers. Nobody else touches the money! And TipTopFund with investors increase their share in the business on 1.8% and now we own 2.08%.

As the second stage is done we have a company and a website and now the business has more value than it had in the beginning. We may want to raise the price of its shares and now to get aboard new investors will pay 0.07 btc, not 0.05 btc. But again, we collect the money on the multisig escrow account maintained by EscrowMyBits.com and once collected it will be released directly to the developer/provider. In our case we will put that money on the bank account of the company and will pay the salary to the cool sales guys who will generate us revenue. We will control the bank account and all investors will see statements regularly. Once we start make sales the value of our business increases again which will reflect in the price of of shares we own.

And so on.

Thus, the money is always under control: in the beginning it is collected on a multisig escrow account, and once collected it gets released to a developer/provider who delivers services bringing value to our business.

Have you ever wanted to be an early stage investor of a successful start-up like Uber or WhatsApp? Those investors made millions in just a few years. Investing in tech startups is one of the quickest ways to make a fortune and there are many people worldwide who want to get started.

 
In partnership with leading escrow service http://www.EscrowMyBits.com, we created https://www.TipTopFund.com, a project that gives everyone a chance to become an 'early bird’ investor. We're a little bit Kickstarter, a little bit NASDAQ, fueled by bitcoin. We used venture capitalists' approach to investing and applied it to the rapidly-changing tech industry. What we've got is an all-in-one, online, investor-friendly ecosystem that lets startups and investors work with each other safely and effectively.  With TipTopFund, you can make the best investment decision in your life.

 
Still in beta version, TipTopFund utilizes the simple idea of an online supermarket of start-ups. Here’s how it works:
 
1. Investors buy shares of startups by depositing bitcoin via the escrow,
2. The escrow releases funds accordingly to an approved plan of startup development, stage by stage,
3. As the business develops, its value grows, reflected in the price of shares we possess, and investors can trade shares online.
 
Because tech start-ups develop fast, you can expect significant ROI: for example, one of our current start-ups forecasts more than 100% growth of value in 2017 (http://www.tiptopfund.com/product/thesyndicus/)
And this is just the beginning, as a company matures and starts making sales its value may grow dozens times and even more if company gets acquired or goes to IPO.

Our unique features:
- Third-party respected escrow with multi-signature accounts for top-notch funds protection;
- Investors become co-founders of startups (through TipTopFund as trustee);
- Project initiators don't touch the money, investors finance development of the company they own;
- Investors are able to measure progress of their startup development any time, because all information is available online;
- Our startups receive mentorship, networking, and constant support from top global industry professionals in addition to funding.

The potential of the tech industry is enormous - there is $20 trillion in capital in the US alone! TipTopFund allows online investors to ride this wave easy and riskless. Thus, read more about the project here https://www.tiptopfund.com/ , get your shares and grow your own Uber!


We believe our approach will unleash the power of online collaboration and allow innovative startups from around the world to thrive and deliver profits. We're open for partnership with all professionals in the bitcoin community who want to earn bitcoin by working on exciting start-up companies. And of course, we always welcome interesting ideas and businesses.


This thread will be posted with our news and updates in accordance with the forum terms of use.
All questions and offers can be sent to info [at] tiptopfund [dot] com or through our website https://tiptopfund.com.