The crowdfunding community of investors and entrepreneurs came together this week (4th-8th October) for an international online conference, 2021 Equity Crowdfunding Week, a five-day educational event with many major global equity crowdfunding organisations featured.
The event was helped educate the start-up, retail investor, and entrepreneur communities on how to maximise returns in equity crowdfunding, trade private shares in a secondary market via a regulated Alternative Trading System (ATS), launch a successful crowdfunding campaign, scale their companies and raise capital.
Keynote speakers included Shari Noonan, CEO and Co-Founder of Rialto Markets, broker dealers who bring private markets to the public through their various Reg CF, A+ and D raising solutions, as well as using their FINRA and SEC recognised secondary trading ATS platform, facilitating the buying and selling of shares in private companies – a vital component for crowdfunding led companies and their shareholders.
Other leading crowdfunding companies were present at Equity Crowdfunding Week. Notable speakers included “The Queen of Crowdfunding” Sara Hanks – co-founder and CEO of CrowdCheck, an attorney with over 30 years of experience in the corporate and securities field, renowned for her international work with regulators in Europe and the US, developing strong governance for the crowdfunding sector.
High growth private companies that are enjoying successful crowdfunding raises, such as Cityzenith, Atlis Motor Vehicles, and Knightscope who between them have recently raised over $100m, and continue to utilise crowdfunding to stay private for longer, were also highlighted at the event.
America’s Jobs Act legislation allows companies to raise up to $75m a year in the US alone via Regulation A+, and up to $5m under Regulation CF. Recent Reg A+ updates mean some of these shares can be traded on a regulated secondary trading platform, known as an ATS, meaning early investors can potentially realise value much earlier. Typically, private companies and their shareholders have to wait on 10-15 years on average to afford the cost of a public listing on a major stock exchange such as the NYSE, NASDAQ, the FTSE or other major international public markets.
For instance, crowdfunding under tier 2 Regulation A+, $15m-$22.5m’s worth of share capital can be traded on a secondary trading platform ATS, such as Rialto Markets in the US and Crowdcube in the UK can offer a similar solution under the UK’s regulations. There are 27m private companies in the US alone and only 1,000 of those are listed on major stock exchanges – crowdfunding and secondary trading are starting to transform a multi-trillion dollar private market.
Equity Crowdfunding Week covered various themes such as: individual entrepreneurs investing in equity crowdfunding, launching an equity crowdfunding campaign, institutional investment into equity crowdfunding, how dealer brokers are positively changing the capital landscape, regulations that make equity crowdfunding possible, and the success stories helping drive the equity crowdfunding market.
The experience offered over 20 workshops, roundtables, keynotes, fireside chats, founder stories, and provides the viewer with 4k cinematic streaming, delivery of HD commercials and on-screen promotions for partners and sponsors.
Other conference participants included host Darren Marble & Lauren Simmons of the Going Public Series & Jezlan Moyet, Media Personality + Entrepreneur & Producer + Host, covering topics like “Entrepreneurs Are the New Celebrity” “Inequities in Raising Capital” “Cannabis is Crowding” “Unlocking Liquidity” and “Cross Atlantic Deals”.
“Equity Crowdfunding has taken a new shape in creating job opportunities, better technologies and breaking barriers across private markets while major brands help lead the way.” Said Lorel Scott, Co-founder of Equity Crowdfunding Week & COO of StartupStarter.