In our last webinar, we’ve talked about a very complex topic in the startup industry: The Regulation A+.
For those of you who have never heard of it (no shame in learning, folks), Regulation A+, or Reg A, is a section of the JOBS Act that allows private companies to raise up to $ 50 Million while offering shares to the general public.
This can have a profound impact on how startups work. Unfortunately, there’s still a great deal of confusion surrounding the topic.
That’s why we brought in Sara Hanks, a top attorney with over 30 years experience in the corporate and securities field and Founder of CrowdCheck, and Darren Marble, Co-Founder and CEO of Issuance, with extensive experience in the capital raising process.
Here are some highlights of the discussion:
Sara Hanks: Regulation A+ is a popular name for a series of amendments to existing laws there were made in 2015. The Regulation A was an exemption for full regulation with the SEC, that permits a company to make a public offering, without the restrictions on the security being sold, but not to go through the full SEC process. So it’s an exemption for a public offering.
And that’s important because it’s public, the securities that are sold are not restricted, they can be free traded, if you can find a place for them to trade, you can trade them immediately, after the qualification of the offering. The companies who can use Reg A are U.S. or Canadian companies.
Darren Marble: The most interesting question to me is what companies are ideal candidates to use the Reg A Securities exemption as a capital raising tool. And just because you might be eligible to do a Reg A offer doesn’t mean you should. You know, if there’s a cliff that’s 50 feet above the ocean and you’re on that cliff, and you can see the ocean, doesn’t mean you should dive in. You probably need to be a professional diver.
I say that you don’t choose Reg A, Reg A chooses you. And what I mean by that is I think the Reg A exemption discriminates in that aspect. They will save a very particular type of issuer and it will punish or harm another type of issuer.
We also talked about:
– Marketing strategies that need to be considered for a Reg A+
– Who qualifies for it?
– What are the benefits?
– What does the Due Diligence look like?
– What liability is there for the issuer?
– What liability is there for any who promotes the offering?
To watch the full webinar, click here.
You can also watch the full version of our previous webinars: