Skip to main content

The Fix Crowdfunding Act

The summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.

Fix Crowdfunding Act

This bill amends the Securities Act of 1933 (Act) to increase from $1 million to $5 million the aggregate amount of securities sold to all investors by an issuer that qualify for the crowdfunding exemption from certain prohibitions relating to interstate commerce and the mails.

The bill amends the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) to declare that a crowdfunding portal shall have a reasonable basis for disqualifying issuers from offering securities through the portal if through a background check it has found that an issuer has made an untrue statement of a material fact, omitted to state a material fact necessary to avoid making misleading statements, or engaged in fraud or deceit. No intermediary (crowdfunding portal) shall be liable for an issuer's material misstatements and omissions unless, in connection with the offer or sale of a security, it knowingly made or omitted such statements or engaged in fraud or deceit.

The bill amends the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to exempt crowdfunding securities transactions from its registration requirements.

The Investment Company Act of 1940 is amended to exempt from the definition of investment company, and so exclude from coverage by that Act, any issuer that, for the purpose of making a crowdfunding offering, holds the securities of not more than one issuer eligible to offer securities (a single-purpose fund).

The bill allows single-purpose funds to sell and offer for sale securities according to crowdfunding requirements, and considers them venture capital funds.

The Act is further amended to permit an issuer, before commencing a crowdfunding offering, to solicit non-binding indications of interest from potential investors in the prospective offering if:

no investor funds are accepted by the issuer, and any material change in the information furnished during the actual offering from the information furnished during the solicitation of interest is highlighted to potential investors in the information filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. No enforcement action may be brought before May 16, 2021, against crowdfunding portals established under the JOBS Act.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Crowdfunding Accounting 101 - Revenue Recognition in Crowdfunding

A start-up using crowd funding to create a product is different from a normal company. The start-up has cash inflows from donations but does not have a product, yet. In this situation, we recommend using completed-contract method to recognize revenue. Under this way of thinking, we assume the start-up is akin to a project or a long-term contract. The crowdfunding company will find it difficult to estimate the revenue from crowdfunders and, hence, the cost of rewards or perks. Under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and GAAP guidelines, if the firm cannot reliably measure the outcome of the project, revenue should be recognized based on contract costs. These costs should be expensed when incurred. Profit is recognized only at the completion of the project. In summary, for crowdfunding companies, revenue, expense, and profit are recognized only when the crowdfunded product is actually manufactured. 1 For example, assume that AAA Corp. wants to manufacture bicyc...

Top 50 Crowdfunding Campaigns: Fifty Most Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns

  Top 50 Crowdfunding Campaigns: Fifty Most Successful Crowdfunding Campaigns Kindle Edition https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RKK4NL0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Top 50 Crowdfunding Campaigns

The chart below results from an analysis of the Top 50 crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo, 'Top' measured by total dollars raised. The X axis shows the dollar amount of the reward or  perk ($1 to $10, $11 to $20, etc.) The Y axis shows the cumulative number of rewards/perks collected across all 50 campaigns, so the chart shows that, for the top 50 crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo, 100,000 rewards/perks with a  value ranging from $1 dollar to $10 dollars were selected by supporters.  Normally, we might expect this chart to be convex, declining steadily from $1 to $5000. This is not what we see, however. It seems that people are willing to donate small dollar amounts, up to about $50, and then contributors look to donate at least $100. What's going on here? To explain this phenomenon, classify backers into two categories: 1. The first category are people who simply want to help. They donate less than $50 dollars and do not donate for the reward (normally a T-shi...