Abstract
In the short duration of its existence, it is widely accepted that investment crowdfunding has failed to realize its potential. Although true, almost all investment crowdfunding is targeted to angel investors instead of ordinary people (nonaccredited investors). Investment crowdfunding offerings commonly bar ’ordinary people’ from participating, set the price of a minimum investment at a level that ordinary people cannot afford and/or the structure of the offering is not sufficiently attractive to meet the investment needs and preferences of ordinary people. Small businesses that engage in investment crowdfunding face a wide range of challenges: the need to build and manage large crowds, high transactional costs makes crowdfunding compare unfavorably with other sources of capital, and current securities laws and regulations remain overly burdensome. As a result, access to capital remains a top challenge for small businesses. As each of these challenges is addressed, it is expected that investment crowdfunding will become accepted and grow to have a dramatic impact on the capital industry.
Keywords: Crowdfunding, investment crowdfunding, accredited investors, non-accredited investors, intrastate crowdfunding, equity crowdfunding.
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