Most investment portfolios support Apple, Microsoft, and other multi-billion (or trillion) dollar corporations. If you'd like to invest a little closer to home, Honeycomb Credit's crowdfunding platform makes it easy to find and invest in local small businesses and earn five to 12% interest! That way, you can build your portfolio and support vibrant local economies.

Let's take a closer look at who's behind Honeycomb Credit, how the platforms works, and whether you should invest.

Honeycomb Credit is the brainchild of a sixth-generation community banker named George and a business owner named Ken Martin. George Cook grew up in Western Pennsylvania and witnessed how community banks' disappearance prevented small business owners from getting the loans they needed to make their businesses thrive.

The two went to business school at Dartmouth together before co-founding Honeycomb Credit to address the problems they both experienced from different sides. Currently, the company has a growing team of more than ten employees working out of Pittsburgh and scaling its platform to include businesses around the country.

Honeycomb Credit begins by vetting small business applications by analyzing their financial statements, business plans, and other documents. If they pass muster, the team creates a campaign page and an accompanying Form C – an investment prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Most investment opportunities on the platform consist of fully amortizing Promissory Notes with three- to five-year terms. These simple debt instruments offer investors predictable, recurring income while enabling businesses to plan out their cash flows. Businesses make payments into a secure third-party account, and investors receive quarterly distributions.

In addition to Promissory Notes, the platform also offers some Revenue Share Notes, where businesses pay a pre-determined percentage of their monthly revenue to investors until a certain multiple is repaid. For example, an investor might contribute $100 at a 1.5x multiple, meaning a business would make payments until the investor receives $150 back.

Most Honeycomb Credit investments are collateralized with equipment or a lien on a company's assets. Moreover, some loans have a personal guarantee from the business owners to protect investors further. The Honeycomb Credit team also goes beyond the SEC's Form C requirements and conducts personal financial and background checks.

Honeycomb Credit's attractive returns and low minimums of just $100 make it approachable for all kinds of investors.

In particular, income investors might use the platform to generate more capital from their portfolios and diversify beyond conventional fixed income. While individual crowdfunding opportunities may involve more risk than a diversified bond fund, investing a fraction of a larger fixed income allocation into a group of projects could help spread the risk.

The only major caveat is that Honeycomb Credit is a crowdfunding (Regulation CF) platform, which limits how much non-accredited investors can invest. In practice, most investors can invest up to $2,200 or 5% of the lesser of the investor's annual income or net worth. And, of course, accredited investors can contribute even more.

Honeycomb Credit's platform makes it easy for anyone to invest in local small businesses and earn an attractive return. While small businesses have a greater risk of default, the Honeycomb Credit team vets each opportunity, and investors can mitigate these risks by only committing a portion of their fixed income allocation across several projects.