MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 2016
TECHNOLOGY
By HCIII
Yemani Mason
CEO and Founder
VestMunity
Serial entrepreneur, web developer,
online marketing expert and Real Estate
investor Yemani Mason is starting
VestMunity. This crowdfunding real estate
company is positioned as the next
monumental tech invention out of Silicon
Valley but it is right here in South Florida
and you too can become a major investor.
In the fifth grade, Mason won a
fundraising contest that sparked an entire
ARTS & CULTURE
By Aishah Davis
Kiese Laymon
VONA/VOICES, Voices of Our Nation,
kicked off summer workshops for emerging
writers of color at the University of Miami
with new faculty and classes. The
workshops were held June 19 to June 25
AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO MIAMI HERALD
BB19
The Mason In The Tech-Estate Industry
wholesaleand distribution candy operation.
More so, he extended credit to its buyers
and kept a weekly settlement account
ledger in his composition notebook. This
coming-of-age maverick grew to promote
parties in High School at a local skating rink
that grossed over $25,000 from its inaugural
bash. He continued promoting in college. At
Florida International University he began
taking on a new venture to conquer, the
Tech-industry, after building his very own
computer.
Upon graduation, Mason found initial
success in the tech field with BlackBerry,
Chrome, and creating apps. With these
towering business in the tech world, he was
afforded a world-class education of booms
and busts in technology. Simultaneously,
from his parents with West-Indian roots in
the United States and Jamaica, Mason
learned the value of real estate. As a
side-venture, he reaped the benefits in the
housing market.
In November 2015, Yemani Mason began
to research the new rulings for
crowdfunding in the Jobs ACT- Title III. The
seemingly separate worlds of crowd
promotion, technology and real-estate, in
which he had individually achieved great
success, began colliding.
For background, The U.S. Law previously
prohibited unaccredited investors earning
less than $200,000 a year without a net
worth of $1 million from investing in private
companies in exchange for equity.
However,now with this new ruling,
crowdfunding finally allows an individual to
invest in startups through online purchasing
of equity securities in crowdfunded
companies. Before, only if you were wealthy
or a bank, could you invest in real estate like
the stock market. Now with the new rules on
crowdfunding, you can pool smaller amounts
of money online from large groups of people
on the internet.
Mason began building his business the
same way that many tech startup founders
do -- at home, on his laptop, spending
hundreds of hours coding on the blueprint to
what would become VestMunity (inVEST and
comMUNITY) for the masses. With
VestMunity he is breaking down the barriers
to entering the real estate market.
Mason's home state of Florida has three
of the top five national metro areas with
distressed properties. He knows that by
rehabilitating and reselling properties
2880004_
through VestMunity he can rebuild property
values and communities. Recently, he was 10.2
awarded $20,000 in seed money by entering
a competition about his idea at the Miami
Fintech Forum. The Forum was the first
event in a nationwide collaboration
between Citi Community Development
Village Capital. The event’s objective was to
bridge the opportunity gap for minority and
women tech entrepreneurs taking on the
challenges in financial inclusion, health and
education.
Full disclosure, VestMunity has not yet
fully opened and is still only accessible to
accredited investors, but they are in the
application process for the accreditation.
Once realized, Yemani Mason will give the
power to the people to invest in their
community and create a better society with
VestMunity.
Learn more about VestMunity:
Office: 1-844-837-8476
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.vestmunity.com
Voices of Our Nation
and June 26 to July 2.
Renown black southern writer, editor,
essayist and professor, Kiese Laymon, was
selected by faculty and directors to instruct
the workshop to cultivate writers in the
growing field of Essay. Kiese Laymon is
acclaimed for his collection of essays, How
to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in
America. His work has bee