Crowdfunding has become the life blood for many startups, entrepreneurs and creative types. It not only serves to fund a project, it’s an amazing venue for validation, marketing and customer development.
When submitting an idea to sites like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or 33needs, you open your idea up to feedback and criticism, but also create a channel for early message development and customer acquisition.
But you already knew that, right?
Did you know crowdfunding is likely to become regulated under securities law?
There are two different bills being floated in the House and Senate. But, each will broaden the permissible funding activity allowed through crowdfunders!
For now, as long as you’re just giving away products and not equity in exchange for donor investments, you are fine. But, you’ll want to keep an eye out for changes that will likely be coming around the corner soon.
From VentureBeat
H.R. 2930 Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act
On November 3, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2930 (the “Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act”), a crowdfunding bill that will allow startups to offer and sell securities via crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, as well as social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
S. 1791 Democratizing Access to Capital Act of 2011
On November 2nd Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts introduced S.1791 (the “Democratizing Access to Capital Act of 2011”), which was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. A hearing was held by such committee on December 1 with respect to a number of pieces of capital formation legislation, including crowdfunding.
