Category Archives: Investment

Whoopi and Neiss in the WSJ

Today the Wall Street Journal picked up the story of the startup exemption.  As more people hear about this exemption being pushed forward the more people that realize it is a tangible solution to getting money flowing in our economy.

Share

The US Takes Steps to Improve the Economy by Focusing on Startups

Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind. are leading the way to ease immigration requirements for foreign entrepreneurs with their “Startup Visa” bill. There are many different requirements to qualify for the Startup Visa, but most importantly the foreign entrepreneur must directly create jobs for Americans.  Essentially, what this is saying is that foreigner entrepreneurs will be allowed to come and work in the US if they have a direct and major impact on the US economy.

These visas will not effect the overall immigration quotas in the US, they will simply be using unused visas. Entrepreneurs, small businesses and startups are the way we are going to grow our economy to get out of this recession.  The UK has already realized this and have passed a Startup Visa of their own recently. It is important to note that the crowd funding exemption we are talking about here at Startup Exemption is already allowed in the UK.  If the US does not move fast we are going to get left behind while entrepreneurs, money, and jobs flow overseas to the UK and other more forward thinking countries.

Share

Hong Kong Invests in US companies where Americans can’t

American companies are having a very difficult time raising the money they need to grow their businesses. It’s not because the money is not there but rather because it is not flowing from the people who have it to the people that can use it to grow our economy. One of the things that has always made America great is our ability to innovate. Unfortunately, innovation is currently being stifled by overly strict SEC regulations. These regulations however are not stoping other countries from innovating and riding off the coat tails of US entrepreneurs.

GrowVC, a Chinese company, has now launched with its intention to fill this funding void by collecting money from investors (including Americans).  They already have successful cases of US Startups raising capital from them.  What does this mean? First, by being offshore they just worked around the entire SEC process.  And second, the future success stories of the USA as well as their technology, Intellectual Property and future profits will be owned/shipped overseas.  The one major loophole in these regulations is that if you are not an American or an American company, you are not regulated by these security laws. Clearly, these outcomes were not the intention of the Securities law however it is exactly what is happening. I personally don’t feel that selling our nation’s entrepreneurs to foreign countries is in anyone’s best interest.

By making common sense amendments to the 1933 and 1934 Securities laws we can stop this mass export of US entrepreneurs and get back on track to recovery and innovation.

Share