The quickest path to the front of the pack is often to create a pack of your own.

That’s one way of looking at the recent announcement from BancBox CEO Sanj Goyle, whose company just built what they are calling the first online investment portal with an automated escrow service.

The idea behind the portal, BancBoxCrowd, is to provide a platform for creating independent escrow accounts for crowdfunded projects. The money collected from investors is either returned if the project is not completed, or distributed accordingly if the funding goal is reached.

BancBoxCrowd is fully SEC and FINRA compliant, and works by copying and pasting the relevant code to the destination page or solution. Users can monitor funding and escrow status, as well as get investor information, all in real-time.

Founded in 2008 and based in San Mateo, California, BancBox began as a way for non-financial institutions to collect, store, and send money in a secure, compliant, and integrated way. The platform has opened more than 100,000 consumer accounts, and processed billions of dollars in payments.

BancBox demoed their technology as part of FinovateSpring in 2012. See their presentation here.