NerdWallet did a nice job on this article summarizing some of the non-traditional methods of accessing precious cash to operate a business.
We participated in the crowdfunding section with our supporters at Crowdfunder.com. Here's an excerpt from the article. It's worth a read in its entirety and covers several other interesting approaches to access cash.
"Among businesses that have successfully raised money on Crowdfunder is Bitvore, an Irvine, California, tech company that provides intelligence-gathering and analysis for businesses.
“We looked at venture capital, but we are not in Silicon Valley, so that makes it hard,” says Jeff Curie, president and CEO of Bitvore. “We tried crowdfunding because we saw it as the online version of physically pitching in front of angel groups. We were right: We had great success because we reached so many angel investors all over the country.”
While Bitvore also tried other equity crowdfunding platforms and had some success, Curie says Crowdfunder outperformed the others.
“We raised the most money there by quite a bit, and second, they were very responsive and helpful,” he says. “Great people, good service.”