Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Equity Crowdfunding, Alternative Funding
Debra Chanda, Managing Director of Launch 120 Inc. Joins National Crowdfunding Association of Canada Advisory Board
NCFA Canada | March 10, 2014
TORONTO, ON March 10, 2014 – The National Crowdfunding Association of Canada (NCFA Canada) today announced that Debra Chanda, Managing Director of Launch 120 Inc. has joined the Association’s Board of Advisors.
Ms. Debra Chanda is the Managing Director of Launch 120 Inc., a strategic marketing venture catalyst firm that quickly provides North American commercial strategy and corporate development services to diverse start-ups, emerging-growth and high-growth companies. Debra represents 14 years in the North American marketplace working with clinician-innovators through her involvement with portfolio companies of Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Institute of Technology.
Prior to Launch 120 Inc., Debra was the National Product Marketing Manager for Medtronic and Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for Adagen Medical International, Inc. ®: both medical device companies representing Spine FDA registered products. Additionally, she was the Director of Marketing and Interim Management for Fountainhead Ventures, LLC and its technology portfolio companies. She is a former Adjunct Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Management, Atlanta, GA., and Global Ambassador Canada, Singularity University, Nasa Ames. She grew up on a farm in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Ms. Debra is passionate about accelerating technologies into the marketplace in collaboration with winning teams.
“What makes me excited about Crowdfunding is that it is a real-time marketing focus group for product development and end customer feedback. It is essentially a bottom up approach to innovation that provides much needed capital for startups while creating market adoption.” – Ms. Debra Chanda, Managing Director, Launch 120, Inc.
“Debra is a go-getter focused on solving problems through innovation and ‘out of the box’ strategic execution. Her experience in the health care technology sector combined with her academic and entrepreneurial achievements give Debra an edge and a view towards the future.” – Craig Asano, Founder and Executive Director of National Crowdfunding Association of Canada
About the National Crowdfunding Association of Canada
As Canada's crowdfunding advocate, NCFA Canada works closely with industry, government and academia to build support for Canada's rapidly growing Crowdfunding community by providing education, advocacy and networking opportunities to a national membership base of 700 industry stakeholders, small businesses, and investors. NCFA Canada is community-based, membership-driven entity that was formed at a grass-roots level to fill a national need in the market place. For more information please visit ncfacanada.org.
Source: NCFA Canada
For more information please contact:
Media Contacts:
Craig Asano
Executive Director
NCFA Canada
p. 1 (416) 618-0254
e. casano@ncfacanada.org
Equity-based crowdfunding: Will the US overtake the UK?
Crowdfund Insider | Tom McGinn | Feb 26, 2014
“Kickstarter is crowdfunding with training wheels.”
For many, equity-based crowdfunding is the final stage of crowdfunding’s evolution. The United Kingdom was an early adopter of equity crowdfunding. Less than two months after President Barack Obama signed the JOBS Act in 2012, dubbed the “Crowdfunding Bill”, UK platform Escapethecity.org had already raised £500,000.
While equity crowdfunding raised £28 million in the UK last year, it only became “legal” in the United States on 22 September 2013 – the day Title II of the JOBS Act came into effect allowing “general solicitation” of private placement share offerings. The average American is still prohibited from acquiring shares online via crowdfunding.
However, an examination of the two countries’ regulatory frameworks reveals that the US may overtake the UK as the world’s equity crowdfunnding capital – perhaps even this year.
US legal position: September and October 2013 kept crowdfunding analysts busy.
Title II of the JOBS Act lifted a ban on the public advertisement of stock placements, which dated back to 1933. Entrepreneurs and crowdfunding providers can now solicit any accredited investor. This includes someone who is presumed to be a “sophisticated investor” with an annual income of at least $200,000 or a net worth exceeding $1 million.
On the 23rd of October 2013, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed its regulations on how to implement Title III of the JOBS Act. According to these recommendations, non-accredited investors earning less than $100,000 per year, can invest up to 5% of their income, or $2,000, whichever is more. This would make equity crowdfunding available to the 80% of Americans who earn less than $100,000. The recommendations are expected to enter into force later in 2014.
UK legal position
The relevant UK law is the product of a pre-crowdfunding era, and only caters to professional investors. “Arranging an equity investment” constitutes a “regulated activity” under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), the UK’s financial regulation framework.
As such most equity crowdfunding providers require the approval of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA – the agency responsible for enforcing FSMA), unless their model falls within a limited number of narrow exceptions.
Related: Equity Crowdfunding Regulations in Canada (FAQ)
Approval is usually tied to restrictions determined on a case-by-case basis, which aim to limit the type of investor the provider may transact with.
Seedrs and Crowdcube – the UK’s two largest equity crowdfunding providers – are both FCA approved. As they have different business models, they face different restrictions.
Therefore, in contrast to the US’ initial blanket restriction, crowdfunding slotted into the UK’s existing regulatory framework, – hence the head-start.
However, the government aims to move away from the case-by-case approach to a more streamlined approval process. On the 24th of October 2013, the FCA published a Consultation Paper (CP 13/13) aiming to “make investment-based crowdfunding more accessible to a wider, but restricted, audience of consumers.”
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Crowdfunding new regulations anger start-up industry
BBC News | March 6, 2014
Entrepreneurs say new rules from the UK regulator will "take the crowd out of crowdfunding".
The policies on crowdfunding, which come into force next month, have been drawn up by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) .
Crowdfunding taps into ordinary consumers who want to buy equity, or a stake, in a new start-up.
Many are hosted through a website platform such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo or RocketHub.
Investors and lenders often get rewards, linked to the amount they have pledged - such as badges, T-shirts, tickets, or whatever is being funded - as a thank-you for their support.
The FCA is now proposing that inexperienced investors will have to certify that they will not invest more than 10% of their portfolio in unlisted businesses.
Firms that run the website platforms say the rules are too tight and will put off potential investors.
Barry James, founder of The Crowdfunding Centre, says: "Make no mistake, the infamous 10% rule - however it's dressed up - does just that: it takes the crowd out of equity crowdfunding."
View: Equity crowdfunding regulations in Canada - Frequently Asked Questions
Some of the new regulations cover peer-to-peer lending - a method by which individuals simply lend to an entrepreneur, again often through a website platform.
The FCA sees these as less risky, so the rules are less stringent, and many in the industry have welcomed them.
Samir Desai, chief executive and co-founder of Funding Circle peer-to-peer lending platform, told the BBC: "There are simple things [in the regulations] like keeping the company's money separate from the customer's money.
"It's putting in place sensible operating principles that you would expect in any financial service company."
Founder of peer-to-peer lending platform Funding Circle James Meekings: "This industry has to be regulated"
Striking a balance
Speaking to the BBC's Today programme, Chris Woolard, director of Policy, Risk and Research at the FCA, said: "We're trying to strike a balance between on one hand making sure consumers are properly informed and have real clarity about the investments they are getting into, but on the other hand, making sure this... source of funding is open to businesses and individuals."
The FCA also proposes that crowdfunding platforms should be clearly presented and understandable, and not downplay risks. They should have resolution plans in place, mapping out what happens if the business goes under.
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Drew Hasselback: The wisdom of crowds at PDAC
Financial Post | Drew Hasselback | March 5, 2014
There were about 25,000 people at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto this week.
Some actually do come to one of the world’s largest annual mining conventions to look at the drill samples in the “core-shack,” but the geology geeks are easily outnumbered by those who come to the show looking for money. On that score, there was a lot of chatter at the convention about the latest investo-fad, equity crowd funding.
Equity crowd funding — that is, the use of the Internet to offer investors small equity stakes in businesses — has landed in Canada. In December, Saskatchewan became the first province to allow crowd funding. Small businesses in Saskatchewan can raise up to $150,000, with individual contributions capped at $1,500 per investor. The Ontario Securities Commission, Canada’s largest securities regulator, is expected to announce its own policy by the end of this month. An OSC consultation paper last year discussed allowing companies to collect up to $1.5-million in crowd funding per year, with contributions from individual investors capped.
Related: Equity Crowdfunding Approved in Saskatchewan
Wherever there’s talk of money, one usually finds lawyers. PDAC is no exception. As with recent years, most of the big Canadian business law firms were at the show, hosting social events, conducting seminars on legal trends, distributing literature, and laying claim to professional expertise in mining. Yet there was also a relatively new phenomenon. There were a number of U.S. lawyers at the show chatting up recent U.S. securities law developments that might facilitate cross-border investing.
Guy Lander, an attorney with Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP in New York, discussed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s new crowd funding rules at a session on financial markets. Crowd funding, he said, has serious drawbacks that make it ill-suited for mining companies. For example, the SEC will permit U.S.-based issuers to use crowd funding for up to US$1-million in a 12-month period. That’s not a lot of money, given the capital demands of modern mineral exploration. “Once you have a proposal go through the meat grinder called the SEC, you come up with these type of requirements.”
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Crowdfunding and angels could combine
New Zealand Venture Investment Fund | March 2014 Newsletter
The New Zealand Venture Investment Fund says new rules permitting equity crowd-funding investments for start-ups could allow angel investors to develop platforms to integrate crowd-funding with their investments.
“The Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013’s provisions permitting crowd-funding in New Zealand come into effect on 1 April. We have watched the development of crowd-funding investment in the United States and believe it could have a positive impact on New Zealand start-ups,” says Franceska Banga, NZVIF’s chief executive.
“The early stage investment community, and particularly angel networks and investors, need to consider how crowd-funding can be integrated with existing investment platforms in order to increase the capital available to young start-up companies.
“Angel investment has become, over the past decade, an important source of capital for start-ups. At the same time, non-equity crowd-funding platforms, like Kickstarter, have seen exponential growth, especially in music, design and consumer products.
Related: Crowdfunding and angels could combine
“These new rules provide the opportunity to design new platforms which bring together the best of angel investing with the best of crowd-funding.
“The United States is leading the way. Angel List, for example, has developed a platform which enables start-ups which have received a certain level of angel investment to then be able to seek further capital from crowd-funding.
“The benefit of this sort of structure is that it opens up angel-backed companies to a much broader pool of investors. People keen to invest through a crowd-funding platform might be more attracted to an investment proposition which has already attracted angel investors and due diligence has been done. They might also want the assurance that the investment is properly executed, and includes appropriate investor protections.
“This type of crowd-funded investing will be high risk – just as all early stage investment is high risk. But if it allows new start-up companies with a good business opportunity to attract both angel investors and crowd-funding, that should be positive for their development.”
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Better access to equity capital at lower cost good for NZ Inc
New Zealand Herald | Bradley Kidd, Josh Blackmore | January 16, 2014
Start-up and early stage businesses will have access to a larger menu of capital raising options from April 1 as the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013 (FMCA) begins to come into effect.
The new levers are key to achieving the FMCA's purpose of promoting "innovation and flexibility" in the New Zealand economy and should encourage growth in the highly inventive but traditionally capital hungry software design and computer services industry.
The requirement in the Securities Act 1978, which the FMCA will replace - that share offers to the general public be via a full investment statement and prospectus - with all of the expense that entails, can put this option beyond the reach of the small or emerging business.
Related: Crowdfunding is essential for job creation and innovation
The FMCA does provide some exceptions from this rule, but the provisions are complex, often require legal advice and have generally been interpreted narrowly by the courts.
The "habitual investor" exception, for example, has been construed as applying to professional investors rather than to persons who invest regularly.
A common challenge for young companies is to attract and retain talented staff through the lean early years when there is limited capacity to pay competitive salaries. A solution to this is to offer foundation employees equity in lieu of or as a supplement to their pay.
But the Securities Act makes this difficult also because the "close business associate" definition has been held by the courts to exclude "mere employees" with the result that off-market employee share offers have tended to be limited to senior management, where it is easier to establish that they qualify for other "bright line" exemptions.
Related: Better access to equity capital at lower cost good for NZ Inc
The FMCA by contrast explicitly provides for reduced disclosure in relation to employee share offers where the offers do not exceed 10 per cent of the company's total shareholding in any year and are made as part of an employee's remuneration arrangements (rather than for the primary purpose of raising money).
The pool of investors able to engage in "private offers" outside the full panoply of protections the legislation provides for the prudent but non-expert investor will also be expanded.
In particular:
• The "habitual investor" test is redrawn to include persons who meet an "investment activity" threshold.
• The "experienced person" exemption is available through self-certification, although the certificate must be confirmed by an authorised financial adviser, a lawyer or a chartered accountant.
More importantly, the FMCA will create new capital raising instruments for small offers outside the full disclosure regime.
A new "small offer" exclusion will apply to offers which do not seek to raise more than $2 million within any 12-month period and which are limited to 20 investors, each of whom is connected to the issuer either professionally or personally, through some previous association or where the investor has indicated they are interested in offers of that kind (such as through membership of an angel network).
Watch Now: Equity Crowdfunding in Canada Experts Panel Discussion (Webcast)
But the innovation which has so far captured the most attention is the accommodation the act provides for crowd funding and peer-to-peer lending. These internet-based services exist now but the Securities Act prevents their use to raise even a small loan or equity contribution without full offer documentation.
The FMCA removes this impediment by creating a new category of "licensed intermediary" for which website hosts and others can apply, and which will allow the licence holder to let people make equity or debt offers on their platforms without having to meet the normal disclosure requirements.
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Canadian securities regulators eye rules on crowdfunding
The Toronto Sun | Alastair Sharp, Reuters | Feb 27, 2014
TORONTO - Canada's provincial securities regulators are looking to extend their jurisdiction to cover crowdfunding, the grass-roots form of fundraising being pursued by a growing number of start-ups and small ventures.
The move is part of a broader plan to revise rules around who is qualified to invest in a publicly-traded company without first seeing a prospectus.
Prospectus documents are designed to disclose the risks of buying into a company and protect vulnerable buyers. But some critics see them as onerous requirements that can hamper fund-raising for young enterprises.
Related: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Equity Crowdfunding Regulations in Canada
View: Equity Crowdfunding for Entrepreneurs, For Investors, For Portals
The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), the council of provincial regulators, said on Thursday they aim to strike a balance between making more cash available to promising start-ups and ensuring investors aren't stretching beyond their means to invest in risky bets.
The proposals, which are open to public comment until the end of May, include a framework to manage the growth of online crowdfunding sites pitching private opportunities to investors who might then decide to invest between $20,000 and $150,000.
The Ontario Securities Commission, the biggest of the country's provincial regulators, said the proposed amendments would require changes to its definition of so-called accredited investors, who can legally invest without seeing a prospectus.
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