Founded in 2006, TechShop is a membership-based, DIY workshop and fabrication studio based in Menlo, California. The company has announced it has set a goal to raise $60 million to build new facilities in communities across the United States. The new fundraising by TechShop is possible because a critical part of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which lifts the ban on general solicitation and advertising for certain offerings, goes into effect today.
The JOBS Act eases regulations on the funding of U.S. small businesses to spur growth and pave the way for them to create more jobs. TechShop can now invite a broader group of investors, which includes smaller and community-minded investors, to participate in the business and bring TechShop to their cities.
“TechShop is a hometown platform where innovators and entrepreneurs can go to build their dreams. Each TechShop location delivers the tools and support a community needs to inspire a revival of small business and manufacturing that can create new jobs and a stronger local economy,” said Mark Hatch, CEO of TechShop. “And the JOBS Act is giving us the freedom to continue pioneering a business model that is by and for the people around us who are building the next great thing.”
TechShop considers their company an early adopter of crowdfunding. TechShop has a record of attracting smaller investors to support building facilities in Menlo Park, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., where restrictions on solicitations are not as onerous. The company will continue to embrace small investments as a key to its participatory and community-based business model, and to seek corporate and institutional partnerships like those in place with Ford, Arizona State University and Autodesk. The TechShop model is unique and powerful, proven by the fact that the prototypes for successful companies like Square and DODOcase were born at TechShop.
To raise its $60 million target and empower more makers across the country, TechShop will seek support from individual and corporate investors. Its aggressive plan is to build new facilities in Chandler, Ariz.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Menlo Park, Calif.; Chicago, Ill.; Cedar Valley, Iowa; Boston, Mass.; Baltimore, Md.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; St. Louis, Mo.; New York, N.Y.; Portland, Ore.; Pittsburgh, Pa. (expanded programming); Seattle, Wash. and Washington, D.C. (Arlington, Va.).