Shane Emmett ’00, CEO of , which makes chia seed “superfood” bars, was on .
The piece is titled “Small Firms May Soon Turn To Crowdfunding To Sell Shares” and reports on how smaller firms might raise money using crowdfunding.
Emmet was featured in an article called “” in the autumn issue of the °IJʿ Scene. , another entrepreneur featured in the Scene article, turned to Kickstarter last year to raise funds for her company, . The Pop Nation Kickstarter campaign raised just over $50,000 from 330 people.
However, Kickstarter isn’t the same as buying shares in a company. Kickstarter often means buying product, or simply investing in ideas. That means crowdsourcing doesn’t always get the attention of high net-worth individuals.
According to SEC rules, private companies are only allowed to solicit funding from accredited investors — essentially wealthy people with a net worth of $1 million. As reported in the NPR story, the new rules would “allow companies to raise as much as $1 million a year from lower net-worth people by selling shares.”
Emmet contends that “It’s a really interesting opportunity, I think, not only for companies that are getting bigger, like Health Warrior, but for companies that are smaller and aren’t fortunate enough to have ready access to capital from high net-worth individuals.”
Listen to the and read the “” feature.