It seems crowdfunding for equity in the US will take at least another year before it transforms the legislative and regulatory Securities & Exchange Commission Act of 1933 and 1934. The US is the first and only country in the world actually changing its charters to allow crowdfunding for equity to roam freely among its citizens. The negativity from naysayers has been adamant and deliberate. Yet we maintain that the industry is estimated to reach $6 billion in 2013.
I have outlined 10 Steps necessary for the implementation of crowdfunding for equity (where stocks are exchanged for cash via online sites), which was part of President Obama’s Jumpstart Our Business Startup (JOBS) Act, signed into law April 5, 2012 and soon to see its first anniversary. The SEC had a deadline to interpret the intentions of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the JOBS Act and to translate those intentions into compliant laws and procedures. The SEC has to date facilitated enacting 3 out of 6 title provisions of the Act – the outstanding three are Regulation A plus, exemption Regulation D, 506c that removes the solicitation ban from private offerings under SEC and crowdfunding offerings online (cash for stock). Yet, crowdfunding for equity’s deadline passed without implementation on January 1, 2013 and here are some of the reasons.
By the way, crowdfunding is one pillar of crowdsourcing like crowd labor and crowd innovation. Crowdfunding has four sectors of donation, reward, debt and equity. Equity is the only issue in the JOBS Act where the SEC oversees any transactions of stocks in companies being offered. It is similar to Kickstarter’s donation system but where you receive stock instead of rewards for cash.