With bipartisan Congressional support in 2012 and four years of rulemaking by the SEC and FINRA to enable Regulation Crowdfunding, this new form of online fundraising for the past two-plus years has allowed entrepreneurs to raise capital through online funding platforms that act as gatekeepers to the public investment community.
Campaigns are publicly available for anyone to review, and those who are properly vetted are free to invest. This novel process is a significant departure from the way private placements of securities have traditionally been conducted and has been a worthy modernization given the efficiencies of technology to facilitate transactions over the internet and the availability and acceptance of social networks that match entrepreneurs and interested investors more intelligently.
