Oscar Jofre  00:25

Well, good afternoon everyone. Wow, it has been a while since I’ve seen everyone coming to our KoreSummits, but I’m so excited today. Welcome once again, my name is Oscar Jofre. I’m one of the co-founders of KoreConX, the world’s first all-in-one platform for the private capital markets. Today, I’m pretty excited and you will be as well because, as you know, with the recent changes in the JOBS Act, so many new developments are happening. And if you didn’t see it, thank you, Sherwood Nice, he put it out there yesterday, which is great news, one of the regulations under the JOBS Act is about to hit $1 billion in capital raise in the next 30 days. This is a major milestone, I’ll never forget the day when only $10,000 was raised. Now it’s a billion today. This is exciting, how powerful the JOBS Act has been. But today marks another milestone for us as well, you know, we always bring the A-Team on these occasions. We bring the best of the very best. And because of the recent amendments in the regulations by the regulators, it has opened up a brand new vertical, a vertical that it’s so impactful. so impactful in all our lives. There isn’t a single one of you here today, whether you are the CEO of that company, or you know someone that you will not be able to relate to one of these verticals. What I’m talking about is the medtech, life sciences, biotech, pharma. We see this every day in our lives. And today, my special co-host, Stephen Brock. Stephen. Welcome.

Stephen Brock  02:02

Hi, Oscar. Thanks

Stephen Brock  02:03

for having me. I appreciate it a lot. Glad to be here.

Oscar Jofre  02:06

Well, it’s really exciting. And, you know, given the recent changes by the regulators, and what’s going to happen with these new regulations, obviously, on the 15th of March, when it came out, the big [uncertain] was wow, we got an increase to 75 million. You’re going to hear later on today, from our other speakers on these recent changes that are obviously so impactful. But, you know, one of the things that I really have not seen before in this sector that the average general public has never been given access to. Obviously, Stephen, that’s where you’ve spent your last 10, 20, 30 years working on. And I can’t imagine how excited you are about this day, please.

Stephen Brock  02:51

Oh, Oscar, it’s been the greatest because when I started back in securities in 1998, we did not have these rules allowed for us. So our hands were tied, our feet were tied, we could not raise capital the way we are able to today. When the JOBS Act came into place, and then when you had 506(c)s available, and you didn’t have to know people to raise capital, Regulation A+ comes around in 2015 so that you can raise money from accredited and unaccredited investors. It really opened a wide space for the med tech, pharma, Life Sciences, and the biotech industry. And that is where I focus and our whole team focuses our energy on is just those verticals.

Oscar Jofre  03:33

And you know, I have to tell you, I’ll be honest with you, I go back 12 years ago, and we were talking about early-stage startups. And I gotta tell you, that was not one sector. And I can understand now because it is so capital intensive, but we need that capital injection to get these life-saving, you know, either drugs or devices that are going to impact people’s lives. And given what’s happened to us today and COVID-19, it’s so timely today for all of us. So we’re really looking forward to today. Today, you’re going to have a lineup of speakers that have a vast amount of experience in this particular vertical right from the get-go. This is a very interesting vertical. It took me a while and thanks to Stephen and his colleague, Scott, who you’re going to listen to very shortly, I learned something very interesting that we have not seen in other sectors. And I don’t want to kind of open it up for you just yet. But I’m gonna tell you, this is what makes this vertical I guess, to a certain degree an outlier. I think I don’t know what you think Steven is, I mean, a lot of people have never seen that this is something that “oh my goodness, do you mean I can I can invest in this company?” You know, it is it seems like it’s so far away from people. Now it’s right there in front of them. I just love to hear your thoughts on that.

Stephen Brock  04:58

It’s amazing. I have spoken to about 600 companies over the past year, and none of them new Regulation A+ existed. So we have spent our time educating. And that is where our forefront always is educate, educate, educate first. They are starting to see that this is a way for them to raise massive amounts of capital. Sometimes when you do a clinical trial, and you have to go through three stages, it can cost $120 million. So some of these companies have 8, 12 years behind them, some might have two, but be able to learn that this kind of money is available to them from unaccredited and accredited investors is new for them. And our goal is to make sure they know it and use it.

Oscar Jofre  05:47

And that’s, you know, that’s a great summary to get us going into the first panel this afternoon. So for all of you stand by, this is going to be an exciting journey that you will be part of that there’s never been a webinar solely dedicated to this particular vertical and the special needs that it has for capital, and then be able to match that with the impact investors out there that are looking for this and they can finally get access to it.