Crowdfunding Now!

Yesterday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced "that it will hold its annual Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation at its Washington D.C. headquarters on Nov. 19, 2015. The morning session of the forum will feature panel discussions on exempt and registered offerings occurring after the passage of the JOBS Act." You can register for the forum  here .  We think the SEC will use this opportunity to release the final Title III crowdfunding rules. As I describe in my  book on the JOBS Act , small businesses and startups will be able to raise up to $1 million in equity (or debt) funding online via what are called Crowdfunding Platforms―online communities and websites. Imagine an eBay-like site that allows you to post your idea for a commercial venture online and then allows investors to purchase equity shares or stakes in it.  Recently,  two state securities regulators (Montana and Massachusetts) brought...

As one article notes, "The Texas  State Securities Board, led by Commissioner John Morgan, is scheduled to meet August 27, 2014 to pass the new (crowdfunding) rules slated to go into effect the first of September." Another article states that "Texas as is now the 13th state to create its own equity crowdfunding rules and by-pass the JOBS Act. The U. S. SEC has not released or finalized the federal rules and some states see the billion dollar opportunity equity crowdfunding presents and they have decided to take the bull by the horn and jumpstart small business and economic development in their state. Section 3(a)(11) of the 33 Act exempts from registration any security that is part of an offering sold only to persons residing within a single state if the company is also doing business in that state. So, as long as a company complies with the federal intrastate exemption, it only needs to be concerned with the state’s crowdfunding rules when conducting a crowdfundin...

Under Dodd/Frank,  " six federal financial regulatory agencies – the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency –" must, by law, develop standards and an approach to assessing the diversity policies and practices of entities they regulate. This means looking at diversity at all banks, investment firms, and credit unions. All of them. Each of these agencies will develop a way to determine if the policies of the entities they regulate are fair, or at least, inclusive. They are asking for comments on this.  See:  http://twisri.blogspot.com/2014/01/standards-for-assessing-diversity.html Related articles Standards for Assessing the Diversity Policies of Banks, Investment Firms, Credit Unions