The law that allows this to actually happen has been signed last week I believe. The barriers to investment have been greatly reduced, and with HN's collective wisdom, a PG-backed crowd-investing venture would steer clear of scammers and actually thrive.
The SEC is still reviewing the crowd funding portion before anyone can utilize it. Crowdfunding equity in startups has major governance problems that will be very difficult to solve.
I'm genuinely confused how people think it is a good idea to open up a class of investment with no controls. Why not just buy stocks where the companies have transparency and solid corporate governance?
And the SEC is right to do so. One of the provisions of this new law is that companies seeking unqualified investor funding (i.e. crowdfunding) are not required to disclose their finances for up to five years after going public.
As to simply buying stocks, IANAFinance Guy, but I believe there is an upper limit on the amount you can invest before having to be certified as an investor. Could anyone contribute a proper explanation of that?
As a non-accredited investor you can invest as much cash as you want in public companies. The crowd funding portion of the bill restricts non accredited investors to (I believe) 10% of income or 10,000 per year for risky start up investing. Further it requires investments are made through a platform.
Personally I am worried that 10000 is way too much for an asset class this risky.
I would expect we won't see many pre-series-A deals for at least a year, as the first few companies to do this are going to have to spend a lot of money on lawyers first since there aren't any precedents yet. Then once you have a couple dozen case studies the costs of replicating their success will hopefully come down enough to make this feasible for angel rounds.
Voted up.