I believe that really answers it all. It is a crowd sale movement and the idea is just for new startups to raise funds. Just that in this case, it is not regulated, except now that governments are beginning to look into that and every investors can easily participate worldwide irrespective of the countries they are without any stress.
The most important thing is for every investor to make good use of the resources available including the team before investing in any project, so they do not fall a victim of scammers.