All posts tagged accredited investor

JOBS Act, Accredited Investors, and Flaming Hoops

by Joe Wallin on September 25, 2012 in Financings, Startups with 10 Comments

I’ve heard it multiple times now, from angel investors and entrepreneurs alike, that the JOBS Act changed the definition of “accredited investor” in order to make it easier to be one.  (Remember, Dodd-Frank made it harder.) It’s as if President Obama and the Congress had with the JOBS Act done away with the many flaming hoops that investors and companies have had to jump through for decades in order to raise capital in compliance with the securities laws. Continue reading →

SEC Issues Final Rules On The “Accredited Investor” Net Worth Standard

by Joe Wallin on December 31, 2011 in Federal Law & Regulation with No comments

The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has now issued the final amendments to the accredited investor standards that were prompted by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Dodd-Frank required the SEC to revise its rules to exclude the value of a person’s “primary residence” for purposes of determining whether the person qualifies as an “accredited investor” on the basis of having a net worth in excess of $1M.

Because the Dodd-Frank Act required that the value of an investor’s primary residence be excluded from net worth, questions arose about how debt on a primary residence should be treated. For example, should debt on a primary residence be included in the net worth calculation, even if the total value of the residence was excluded?

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How Congress Can Make Startup Fundraising Easier and Better

by Joe Wallin on May 10, 2011 in Financings with 1 Comment
Law_Column_steps

I was excited to hear that fellow Seattle lawyer Eric Koester was going to testify in front of Congress next week on how to make startup financings easier and better. Please see the story on GeekWire. Eric, below is my bullet point list of what I would change if I could.

  1. Allow general solicitation.

Right now, startups are bound by Rule 502(c), which provides as follows:

Limitation on manner of offering. Except as provided in Rule 504(b)(1), neither the issuer nor any person acting on its behalf shall offer or sell the securities by any form of general solicitation or general advertising, including, but not limited to, the following:

  1. Any advertisement, article, notice or other communication published in any newspaper, magazine, or similar media or broadcast over television or radio; and
  2. Any seminar or meeting whose attendees have been invited by any general solicitation or general advertising;

Intelligent folks have argued these rules don’t make sense. See footnote 25 of the Letter From SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro to The Honorable Darrell E. Issa, Chairman, U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

See, e.g., Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (April 23, 2006), http://www.sec.gov/info/smallbus/acspc/acspc-finalreport.pdf; Joseph McLaughlin, How the SEC Stifles Investment – and Speech, The Wall Street Journal (February 3, 2011). Concerns about the scope of the Commission’s rules on general solicitation and advertising have been raised by the participants in the annual SEC Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation. See 2009 Annual SEC Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation Final Report (May 2010), http://www.sec.gov/info/smallbus/gbfor28.pdf.

  1. Reduce the “accredited investor” financial thresholds.

Dodd-Frank made it more difficult for folks to qualify to invest in startups. This wasn’t helpful to startups.

  1. Add to the definition of “accredited investor” sophisticated persons who make certain acknowledgments about the risks of investing in investment agreements.

If folks are willing to acknowledge that they are willing to lose their money on a highly speculative venture, let’s let them.

  1. Allow a tax write off before the stock is sold.

Right now, the tax law doesn’t allow a recovery of basis in stock until the stock is sold. This encourages people to flip companies.

  1. Allow a tax credit for investments if the funds are used to employ people.

There is a great bill out there right now in Congress that would allow a 25% tax credit for investments made in qualifying startups. This would be a good law to add to the books.

  1. Disallow states from imposing fees on companies simply because an investor is resident there.

Right now, startups can wind up paying $300 fees in numerous states.

  1. Allow offerings in which small amounts of money are raised from many people to be completely exempted from the rules.

For example, if you are raising less than $500 (for example), from 1,000 people to fund a renewable energy project in your neighborhood, allow this to happen.

Good luck and have fun Eric!

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Update

Eric Koester’s written testimony to the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform