 By: Marianne Hudson, ACA Executive Director A few weeks ago I attended a meeting of state securities regulators with leaders of different parts of our securities markets in the US and Canada to compare notes. Not only do I admire the regulators for holding meetings such as this, but I learned a great deal about some of our newest types of securities – equity crowdfunding for everyone and Regulation A (Reg A+ for short). By agreement of all attendees, I can’t share some specifics of who said what, but let me share some of my general takeaways from the NASAA Capital Formation Roundtable about equity crowdfunding:
Tags: Crowdfunding  By: Matt Dunbar, co-founder of the South Carolina Angel Network and managing director of the Upstate Carolina Angel Network. This post originally appeared in Upstate Business Journal. On Father’s Day weekend, I indulged a bit in watching the last round of the U.S. Open golf tournament and the last game of the NBA Finals. My lovely wife, who doesn’t exactly share my interest in sports (other than college football), opined that she found the sports to be boring — except right at the end when you find out who’s going to win. Tags: Accredited Investors Matt Dunbar contributed to this article. He is the co-founder of the South Carolina Angel Network and managing director of the Upstate Carolina Angel Network. This post originally appeared in Upstate Business Journal. Risky business Investing in startups is not for the faint of heart. These businesses are just beginning to develop, and their expenses typically exceed their revenue. In fact, most of them will fail. But you could find yourself sitting on a goldmine. Case in point: Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. He invested about $100,000 in Google just months after founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin created the tech giant in their garage. Bechtolsheim is now worth about $3 billion. That could be you. Tags: Accredited Investors  By: Elizabeth Usovicz, Principal of WhiteSpace Consulting, as part of a series she writes for ACA aimed at entrepreneurs, "Your Pitch is Just the Beginning." On the reality television series “Shark Tank,” an estimated 50,000 entrepreneurs compete for 125 on-air slots each season. While the pitch dynamics and deal-making are high energy, there’s a reason that the next step in the funding process is not on the show. According T.J. Hale of Shark Tank Podcast, due diligence craters an estimated two- thirds of the on-air deals. Tags: Due Dilligence By: Marianne Hudson, ACA Executive Director This post originally appeared on Forbes.com On May 16 when new “Regulation Crowdfunding” took effect, all American citizens received a gift that angel investors have enjoyed for years—they can buy stock in startups. But behind all of the excitement are a few surprises both investors and the companies raising money might not realize. These curveballs may mean that equity crowdfunding, won’t deliver the financial impact that Congress intended for startups when it passed the JOBS Act four years ago. By: Marianne Hudson, ACA Executive Director Ever wonder how your investment activity and background compares to other angels in the US? Take The American Angel survey to put in your information and get early access to detailed reports to learn more. ACA is partnering with Wharton Entrepreneurship to develop the first ever large dataset of US angel investors to understand who angels are demographically, how they became angel investors, how angels make decisions, and what level and type of investment activity they have. The project should benefit angels as an asset class as it brings more visibility to angels, supports a stronger early-stage investing environment, and lead to better public policies to support angel investing and innovative startups. It just might refute a lot of assumptions about angel investors that are incorrect.  By Craig Mullett - President of Branison Group, a corporate finance firm based in Connecticut, USA. Craig is an active angel investor as a director of the Angel Investor Forum. He is also a founder of AngelHub, Africa's first angel group and helped in establishing Trident Angels, the first Caribbean angel group. (Editor’s Note: We liked Craig’s notes from the ACA Summit so much that we thought other ACA members and investors would also get value from them.)
Smart money
Tags: Summit  By: Dave Berkus, Dave Berkus, ”Super angel” investor, tech futurist --A model for angel-led investment deals and syndication-- Congratulations to Cognition Therapeutics, Inc. (CogRx), a Pennsylvania life sciences company, which ACA recognized as the outstanding angel-financed company for 2016, when they received the Luis Villalobos Award. First among twenty-five finalists, a committee of experienced angel investors selected the firm above its competitors for numerous reasons. Tags: Summit  By: Ham Lord, Managing Director of Launchpad Venture Group and Co-Founder of Seraf-investor.com This post originally appeared on Seraf-investor.com Over the past few years, there has been much talk about the importance of investing both financial and human capital into the rapidly expanding entrepreneurial ecosystem. From our perspective, human capital is as important as financial capital in driving the long term success of startup companies. So how do we go about the job of applying human capital to foster this success? Tags: By: Marianne Hudson, ACA Executive Director Victory! With lots of work by ACA and many leaders, the House passed the HALOS Act, which would ensure companies presenting in demo days would not have tripped the general solicitation trigger and therefore be required to take extra measures to verify all of their investors are accredited. This is something the entire startup ecosystem – investors, entrepreneurs, accelerators, incubators, universities and more - cares about. We will now concentrate our efforts on the Senate to make the bill a reality. The bill was approved by a 325-89 vote, meaning it was relatively bi-partisan. Tags: General Solicitation |
