Since the public launch of our beta product at the beginning of the year, CapLinked has grown by leaps and bounds. Back in July we announced that we had passed 55,000 users and $3 billion in deals, and site usage has increased a lot since then. (More on that in coming days.)
So who are all these people? What’s the average CapLinked user look like? We’ve done some surveys of our users and found the results to be very interesting, and we thought we should share them with you. If you’re picturing a bunch of Mark Zuckerberg clones raising capital, you’re in for a surprise.
In terms of age, while there definitely are a number of Gen Y entrepreneurs and investors on our site, the average looks a lot more like the broader world of private investment. About 18% of CapLinked’s users are 21-34 years old, while 30% are 35-44, 27% are 45-54, and 24% are 55 or older. With half of our users over age 45, it’s clear that CapLinked has a broader appeal than just young tech geeks.
Next, let’s take a look at income. A quick glance at the data (see Figure 1) reveals that CapLinked users have above average income. Approximately 82% of our users have an income greater than $100K per year, with 57% earning more than $150K. According to 2009 U.S. Censusdata, average income in the U.S. is $38,000.
Our users also tend to be largely male. This isn’t necessarily a surprise, since finance as an industry tends to be very male-dominated. Overall, a whopping 82% of our users are men. And the majority of our users are married–63% identified themselves as married, compared to 37% who are single. Given the age distribution of our users, this makes sense.
When CapLinked first launched and tech companies and angel investors were our early adopters, the demographics of our site probably looked pretty different. But as use of our platform has grown into new industries, our users are increasingly mirroring the broader universe of private investing–which includes many industry verticals (e.g. real estate, energy, communication, food & beverage), financing sources (e.g. fund managers, accredited investors, investment banks), and service providers (e.g. lawyers, consultants, broker-dealers).
