There's demand but there is no supply. No serious company is going to crowdfund away actual equity. Only the very worst companies are going to go out on the street and beg randos for capital hence ICOs. The reality is that the public will never have access to high quality deals. But there is a lot of money being left on the table that is flowing into scammy ICOs and badly managed Kickstarter projects. It's really too bad the IRS has nothing on the spectrum between private foundations and highly regulated public charities. There's a case to be made for "micro-foundations" that could be crowdfunded for a common purpose and would be barred from issuing ownership shares or taking on debt. (At dissolution time all "profits" of the charity must be disbursed to another charity.) There's a real failure of imagination here at the IRS: the internet makes it ever easier people to collaborate but it's very difficult to effectively pool capital which leads to Kickstarter and ICOs both of which are very sub-optimal solutions for everybody.