MobCraft Beer is Now Equity Crowdfunding in Wisconsin

MobCraft beer launched their equity crowdfunding campaign on CraftFund today (Wednesday, September 25) becoming the first company to take advantage of Wisconsin’s equity crowdfunding exemption.

As was reported this past summer, Wisconsin’s intrastate crowdfunding exemption encountered a bit of a hurdle when local banks were hesitant to act as escrow agents for funds.  The Wisconsin law barred federally chartered banks from participating.  It was an idiosyncrasy that was designed to support local banks that unintentionally forced a delay.  In the end Monona State Bank crossed the line and accepted the challenge so MobCraft could move foreword.

Henry Schwartz, co-founder and President of MobCraft was quoted in the  Wisconsin State Journal stating;

“Most banks that we talked to said we’d really love to do this, but they didn’t want to risk getting in trouble.”

Paul Hoffmann, Monona State Bank president and chief executive countered;

“We love to fund new businesses and help people get started or expand. It really fit into that new way of doing what we’ve always done.”

The offer, that is only available to Wisconsin state residents, is an effort to raise between $250,000 and $500,000 in series B common shares.  A minimum purchase is for 150 shares.  MobCraft hopes to close  the funding round within 90 days on CraftFund with Monona holding the funds until the targeted funding goal is met.  If the funding objective is not achieved all funds are returned to the investors.   

The Wisconsin equity crowdfunding exemption is interesting because it deviates from the federal guidelines as proscribed in Title III of the JOBS Act.  Funding rounds may raise up to $2 million.  A $1 million funding round may be initiated without an audit. Accredited investors are individuals who earn $100,000 or more thus recognizing regionally disparities associated with incomes and cost of living.

MobCraft stated on their campaign page,  “now its time to expand and move into our own facility to produce higher volumes of crowdsourced beers and continue to build out our flagship line”.  Cheers to Wisconsin (and a toast to Monona Bank)