Most states have passed crowdfunding laws. One of the barriers has been the breadth of the federal preemption of interstate securities transactions. To be intra-state, and therefore out of the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the investors and the company doing the fundraising needed to all be in the same state. The problem is … Read more »
Tag: Crowdfunding
Massachusetts Adopts Crowdfunding
Add Massachusetts to the growing list of states that are sidestepping the unusable federal crowdfunding alternative. “The Crowdfunding Exemption is designed to foster job creation by helping small and early-stage Massachusetts companies find investors and gain greater access to capital with fewer restrictions. The exemption is also intended to provide necessary investor protections by requiring … Read more »
Real Estate Crowdfunding
Real estate investing has a long history of crowdfunding. Prior to the 1986 changes to the tax code, there was a large syndication business for getting investors into real estate. Although the investment was usually more for the tax breaks involved instead of income and capital appreciation. With the surge of product crowdfunding through sites … Read more »
The SEC Shuts Down Another Illegal Crowdfunding Site
Kickstarter has shown the world that crowdfunding is a viable option for funding great ideas. Because of US securities laws, the funding arrangement on that platform cannot be for an equity interest. That’s selling securities and that practice is subject to decades of protections built to protect consumers. The JOBS Act opened the possibility of … Read more »
The SEC Still Hates Intrastate Crowdfunding
One of the exemptions from registering a securities offering is if the offering is limited to one state. Some crowdfunding advocates latched onto this exemption and have been pushing for single state crowdfunding at the state legislatures. On April 10, 2014, the SEC issued a Compliance and Disclosure Interpretation on intrastate crowdfunding offerings. The interpretation was … Read more »
Real Estate Investing and Crowdfunding
Real estate investing is capital-intensive. It should be a natural area for crowdfunding. The big concern is fees and conflicts. With a tech startup, you are investing in an idea and the people with the idea. It may grow exponentially or blow up, leaving little behind. Part of the investment is paying the people to … Read more »
The Monsters of Compliance – Frankenstein’s Monster
The pumpkins and garish Halloween decorations are out on my front lawn. With the Halloween season upon us, my mind has become stuck on movie monsters and been mixed with compliance. This is the terrible result. Victor Frankenstein builds a creature in his laboratory with a mixture of surgery, chemistry, and alchemy. His creation horrifies … Read more »
Action Against a Crowdfunding Platform
SoMoLend – which stands for Social Mobile Local Lending – is a crowdfunding platform that allows small businesses to borrow money from a network of lender. The State of Ohio claims that SoMoLend failed to meet the regulatory hurdles currently in place for crowdfunding. It’s also claiming that SoMoLend acting fraudulently when seeking its own … Read more »
Fund Investing and Crowdfunding
As the Securities and Exchange Commission has been dragging its feet on new crowdfunding regulations, companies are finding a way to crowdfund using the current rules. The biggest challenge is dealing with the broker-dealer registration requirements. If you sell securities on a transaction basis, you are likelya broker-dealer and need to deal with the registration … Read more »
Crowdfunding and the Ban on General Solicitation
While entrepreneurs are looking to create crowdfunding portals under Title III of the JOBS Act, small business owners looking to raise capital should keep an eye on the regulatory changes under Title II of the JOBS Act. That may do a better job of opening the spigot for capital than the avalanche of crowdfunding portals … Read more »