Your company is invited by a local meetup group to present at demo day with other startups, and you accept. The group announces the demo day lineup of startups in an e-blast, on its website, on its Facebook page and through banner ads on a tech e-zine. On demo day, the room is packed and
Before 2013, issuers were prohibited from using any means of general solicitation or advertising when raising capital in the private markets. The prohibition was perceived by many to be the single biggest impediment to raising capital privately, particularly since it foreclosed the use of perhaps the greatest capital raising tool ever created: the Internet.
That all changed in 2013 when the Securities and Exchange Commission created new Rule 506(c) under the JOBS Act of 2012, which allowed companies for the first time ever to seek investors through general solicitation and advertising without registering with the SEC, so long as they sold only to accredited investors and used reasonable methods to verify accredited investor status.
So what are reasonable methods of verification? It clearly involves something more than what would meet the “reasonable belief” standard for determining accredited investor status for purposes of the 35 non-accredited investor cap for Rule 506(b) offerings, which as a practical matter means self-attestation through an investor questionnaire. That would not fly under Rule 506(c)’s reasonable verification method standard.Continue Reading (Minimum Investment) Size Matters, When it Comes to Rule 506(c) Verification
Identifying potential investors is one of the most difficult challenges facing early-stage companies. The range of amounts sought at this stage is typically greater than what could be provided by the founders and friends and family, but below what would attract a VC or a registered broker-dealer. The problem is even more acute in geographic
The Securities and Exchange Commission just proposed new rules to protect
investors in private investment funds. The proposed rules would require private fund advisers to disclose certain information and avoid certain practices. But these retail-like protections for private fund investors seem inconsistent with the long-held belief that such investors can fend for themselves. The proposed
A new reality streaming television series called Unicorn Hunters
debuts May 10 in which startups will pitch to a panel that includes Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and the panelists after grilling the entrepreneurs will make decisions on whether or not to invest, similar to Shark Tank. But unlike the couch potato viewers of Shark
Perhaps the most vexing threshold issue faced by any company considering a capital raise is which securities exemption to pursue. The chosen exemption largely depends on the targeted amount of the raise, as well as the manner in which potential investors will be solicited and the type of disclosure to be provided. But this presents
For the second time in nine days, I recently drove ten hours round-trip to drop my son 
off at school for spring semester. The first time around, he ended up returning home with me the next day for unexpected oral surgery to remove his wisdom teeth after completing his mandatory one-day COVID quarantine at school.
You just raised $1 million in your crowdfunding offering under Title III/Regulation CF. That’s the good news. The bad news? You now have over a thousand shareholders on your cap table, making it unwieldy, an administrative nightmare and likely to impede future funding. It means a huge challenge seeking consents for such things as director
At the 1932 Democratic National Convention, the live band at one point burst into 
“Happy Days are Here Again”, FDR’s favorite, drawing raucous cheers from convention delegates. It went on to become the Democratic Party’s unofficial theme song for years to come. The song is also associated with the repeal of Prohibition shortly after FDR’s
Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission passed sweeping reforms of 
the rules governing exempt offerings (the “2020 Reforms”) to make it easier for issuers to move from one exemption to another, to bring clarity and consistency to the rules governing offering communications, to increase offering and investment limits and to harmonize certain disclosure requirements