Crowdfunding 101

The JOBS Act, or otherwise known as the Crowdfunding Act, has been passing into law since 2012 with the most recent development, Regulation CF, enacted in May of 2016 which has opened up investing in privately-held businesses to the average investor. Previously, only the wealthiest individuals that had $200K or more in annual salary or $1MM+ in net worth, could partake.

This is analogous to tapping into the “other 96%” of US investors as potential sources of startup capital, which brings forth a new financial instrument to enable small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to raise their working capital from their own personal and professional networks or investor networks sourced via a crowdfunding portal or broker-dealer. There are many applications of crowdfunding in today’s marketplace such as tech startups, real estate, cleantech, tourist attractions, computer games, music bands and product companies to name a few.

This intro course will cover, a broad introduction to US equity and debt crowdfunding, the basic mechanics of a crowdfunding campaign, the anatomy of a crowdfunding portal and an industry landscape covering trends, investment data, and key players.

The course is designed for industry practitioners (funding portals or broker-dealers) and large do-it-yourself SMBs trying to receive investments online from the crowd. It could also serve, as the basic intro necessary to apply crowdfunding mechanics to an existing business model and the right foundation to get started on equity & debt crowdfunding.

At the end of the course, a participant should understand the basics of equity and debt crowdfunding and have a basic roadmap for implementing a crowdfunding campaign.