Equity Crowdfunding for Investors: A Guide to Risks, Returns, Regulations, Funding Portals, Due Diligence, and Deal Terms

Foreword

It is a rare privilege to have the opportunity to recognize a work of substantial merit and value, as I do in writing this foreword to Equity Crowdfunding for Investors. For over three years now, even before the JOBS Act was enacted into law in our country, I have been an ardent supporter of and an enthusiastic participant in the crowdfunding movement.

Although crowdfunding is a diverse collection of strategies and mechanisms for supporting fund-raising by innovative and entrepreneurial projects and ventures, my primary enthusiasm for the crowdfunding arena is that of an investor interested in the securities-based forms, as opposed to the entrepreneurial fund-raiser or a service-providing member of the supporting industry. Indeed, I have been for several decades an active individual angel investor, and am now a professional fund manager for others. As few would dispute, the manifold social and economic benefits of crowdfunding are dependent on the willingness and ability of individuals to write the all-important checks. However, most of the public discussion of crowdfunding focuses on the benefits to entrepreneurs and society as a whole. This book represents a major step in filling this gap, by providing a primer to the newly enfranchised crowdfunding investor on both early-stage entrepreneurial finance in general, and by explaining practically how recent legal and regulatory changes allow everyone—not just the wealthy few—to participate in this attractive and beneficial ...