How does a crowdfunding website work?
Crowdfunding is mainly classified into two kinds: sponsorhip-based and investment-based. Kickstarter is sponsorhip-based while equity or debt crowdfunding is investment-based. Investmnt-based crowdfunding is only legal in certain countries and is a regulated business. For example, in the UK, investment-based crowdfunding is regulated by rthe Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) while in the US it is regulated by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). You may need to get related license or approval from the financial regulator in your home country if you are going to operate an investment-based crowdfunding platform.Regarding the payment issue, you need to use third-party payment service providers like PayPal or Amazon Payments to collect payments, release funds to campaign owners if their campaigns are successful and refund backers if fundraising tagrets are not met. For example, Crowdfunding platform can use PayPal’s Delayed-Chained Payments (How to Make a Delayed Chained Payment Using Adaptive Payments) to facilitate the receiving and distribution of funds.However, the major difficulty there, in my opinion, is not the related to technology. Payment service providers are very cautious in approving crowdfunding platform. For example, Amazon Payments is only working with a limited number of crowdfunding providers on a trial basis and is not accepting new applications for crowdfunding providers or platforms at this moment. (Please refer to this article: Crowd-funding FAQ - Amazon Payments)Hope my answer can help.
Is there a crowdfunding platform that allows a regular user (not angel/vc/accredited investors ) to invest in pre-IPO companies?
Investing in a company is not a pre- or post- IPO issue but a legal issue which the legislators of each country and/or state have seen fit to legislate as they see fit. In most cases, barriers have been built to protect small, unsophisticated, investors from losing their life's savings by giving thier money to charlatans and thieves.In recent times, with the Internet, equity crowdfunding has sought to reduce those barriers to entry making it easier for small businesses to access capital and for anyone to invest in innovative businesses. However, the laws governing this kind of financing are still specific to each country or state. In the US, the jobs act has tried to organize this market segment but even after a number of years no laws have been enacted. Some states, fed up with waiting, have set their own laws making crowdfunding legal in that state. Seedrs, mentioned in one reply, is UK company and therefore follows their laws. France recently enacted legislation that is considered the most progressive in Europe. Italy's crowdfunding laws exist but are still not very good as they are very conservative. There are also a number of platforms somewhere in between crowdsourcing and the large markets but these too respond to the laws of each jurisdiction.So the answer to question really depends upon where you plan on investing. However, if it is outside of your tax home you will then have to also look at the tax consequences of such an investment making the decision even more complex.