The Flash offered loud applause when the U.S. Congress passed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (“JOBS”) Act in 2012, especially the provision tasking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) with setting the final rules for Title III of the legislation – the provision implementing equity crowdfunding. After receiving wide-ranging – and voluminous – comments on the proposed crowdfunding regulations, the SEC spent the past year reviewing such input and working to complete the final equity crowdfunding rules.
The Flash and entrepreneurs nationwide are now cheering, because on October 30, the SEC adopted final rules to permit companies to offer and sell securities to non-accredited investors through crowdfunding. Coming two years after the original proposed rules were published by the SEC, the final rules contain substantially all of the potentially burdensome SEC filing and public disclosure requirements that were contained in the proposed rules.
It remains to be seen whether companies will conclude that the benefits of being able to raise up to $1 million in a 12-month period (the statutory fundraising cap) outweigh the potentially significant burdens and expenses of complying with the SEC’s initial and ongoing filing and public disclosure requirements.
We also check in with the dream of the driverless car. Elon Musk is pursuing it aggressively. Will it come to reality?
Read articles about these topics and more in this week’s Founders Flash!
- US SEC adopts final crowdfunding rules (Goodwin Procter Client Alert)
- Entrepreneurs should pay attention to the RAISE Act (Upstart Biz Journal)
- The dream of driverless cars (NY Times Sunday)
- The paradox of Tesla’s self-driving car (Slate)
- Indian startup coders draw top perks (Wall Street Journal)
- Do people get happier when they take time off Facebook? (Quartz)
- Is biohacking just a fad? (NY Times)
- GoodWorld is revolutionizing online charity (Inc)