Log in
updated 2:54 PM UTC, Jul 28, 2018

FlynnsHarp logo 042016

State crowdfunding legislation moves toward the implementation date despite SEC uncertainties

As criticism of the Securities and Exchange Commission's dawdling with its charge from Congress to implement crowdfunding through the federal JOBS Act grows to a chorus, there's now criticism emerging that the agency is seeking to disrupt the process for states like Washington that are creating intrastate crowdfunding.

The SEC critics, with increasing plausibility, contend that the agency has done its best to ensure that the federal JOBS Act won't come about as Congress intended.

And now that some states have given up waiting for SEC action, it seems that the federal agency is trying to put roadblocks in the way of frustrated state legislatures that have sought to find ways to have crowdfunding for startups work at the state level through selling shares to large numbers of people, typically via the Internet.

Washington is one of a dozen states that have decided nothing meaningful will come out of SEC machinations, prompting the Legislature last spring, after a year of preparation, to pass a bill that will permit entrepreneurs who are state residents to raise up to $1 million a year in small amounts from in-state investors.

The Legislature gave the State Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) until October 1 to put in place the rules and the process under which crowdfunding can be carried out and Bill Beatty, Director of Securities for DFI, says the agency "remains on track" to meet that deadline.

 

The department will have a hearing Thursday on the proposed rules and "will proceed to adopt the rules shortly after that unless we determine we need to make significant changes to the rules as currently proposed," Beatty said.

 

Joe Wallin, an attorney for Seattle-based law firm Davis Wright, predicts that entrepreneurs who are state residents will be able to begin selling shares to large numbers of Washington resident by the end of the year.

 

The legislation in this state and others was in reaction to what has transpired, or failed to transpire, at the federal level after Congress,

with an election-year flourish in the spring of 2012, passed the so-called JOBS Act, officially the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act.

 

Then Congress turned it over to the SEC to enact rules to implement the law and gave the agency 180 days to put together the process for how entrepreneurs could fund their start-up companies, primarily via the internet, by selling equity to large numbers of average investors.

 

 

It soon became obvious to all but the most myopic, with one delay following another, that SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro had little interest in seeing the law come about, possibly because she was more concerned about protecting average investors than following the law's guidance toward funding entrepreneurs.

 

Now the SEC has a new chairman but there is a growing sense that the details of compliance, if and when the SEC finally acts, will be so onerous on entrepreneurs that the costs of starting to raise capital on the Internet will deter many if not most would-be entrepreneurs. Indeed the latest deadline for the rules to be established has passed and the regulators have not provided a new timeframe, now almost two years after the launch date Congress intended.

And now there is also a sense on the part of many crowdfunding supporters, including Wallin, that Congress, unless it has lost interest, may have to intervene to keep the SEC from removing or changing a number of securities rules that stand to burden in-state entrepreneurs who hope to raise funds in their states to launch businesses.

Wallin, who proposed the wording of the original state legislation and whose blog is viewed by many as the final word on what's happening with federal as well as state crowdfunding, worries that the SEC is trying to make it harder for states to do what Congress intended the federal government to do.

 

 

An example is in the fact that the state laws are not subject to the federal crowdfunding law because the companies raising the money are incorporated in those states and raising money solely from investors in those states. Congress created that specific exemption from federal law for intrastate offerings when it enacted the Securities Act of 1933.

However, the SEC has recently issued interpretive guidance on the intrastate exemption that says that if the company uses the internet to promote or discuss its offering then the offering is not an intrastate offering even if a company is incorporated in a particular state and all investors are in that state.

"This is nonsense and it needs to be corrected," says Wallin, who is seeking to stir an outcry from start-up supporters to demand that Congress get involved. "It's nearly impossible not 

 to use the internet to communicate any fundraising or community organizing event that involves these start-up businesses."

"Section 201 of the JOBS Act was a big help to entrepreneurs in that it allowed startups to talk publicly about their efforts to raise money, a process known as General Solicitation," Wallin notes."Unfortunately, the SEC put rules in place that discourage most companies from taking advantage of this new opportunity and Congress needs to restore the intent of its own legislation."

Wallin offers the following suggestion that can be forwarded to members of Congress by those seeking to use the Internet for crowdfunding of their startup:

"Please either pass a simple piece of legislation to fix this or direct the SEC to clarify or fix its intrastate crowdfunding decisions. Otherwise, by prohibiting the use of the internet in intrastate crowdfunding, the SEC is tamping down a nascent but important opportunity to cultivate local funding and entrepreneurship ecosystems before they even have an opportunity to develop."

It may well be time, in these final weeks of an election season in which most members of Congress are on the November ballot, to send a message that indifference and ineptitude on the issues of innovation and job creation won't be taken well by those who understand the role entrepreneurs play in economic health.

Continue reading
  3118 Hits
  0 Comments
3118 Hits
0 Comments

Angel-investor group fears SEC will change accreditation rules and shrink angel ranks

Although the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hasn't yet proposed an increase in the financial resources required for an individual investor to be accredited, the Angel Capital Association (ACA) fears such a move may loom ahead and has been pressing its members to collectively protest such a step.

The ACA sees the issue as having the potential to dramatically deplete the ranks of what are officially called accredited investors, individuals who are free to make the kind of high-risk investments that fuel the funding of financially risky early stage companies that are key contributors to job creation. All angels are accredited investors

Dan Rosen

The issue is front and center right now because when Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act four years ago, it retained the long-time "accredited investor" threshold of $1 million net worth and $200,000 of annual income but ordered the SEC to do a quadrennial review of the qualifications. The first of those four-year reviews is to be due to conclude next month.

Angel-investor groups successfully overcame an attempt to include in Dodd-Frank a change that would have basically disqualified what by some estimates would have been up to 50 percent of angel investors by boosting the accredited minimums to $2.5 million net worth and annual individual income of $400,000.

But Congress did include in what is officially the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act a change to preclude primary residences from the $1 million-net-worth calculation.

The ACA website plays the job-creation card in preparing for a possible campaign by urging members: "Do you believe in preserving the health of early stage companies and their role in job creation? Then join the Angel Capital Association campaign to 'protect angel funding.'"

Dan Rosen, chairman of the Seattle-based Alliance of Angels and a longtime leader in ACA, says "a change to make the accredited investor definition more restrictive is exceedingly bad public policy."

"This is a time when America needs to unleash innovation and create exactly the kind of jobs that high-growth startups provide," argues Rosen, who until a few months ago chaired the ACA public policy committtee . "Angels fund most of these high-growth startups, investing well over $20-billion per year." 

"We are not financial institutions in New York or Boston, we are individuals in every major city and town in the U.S. who invest not only our money, but also our knowledge and experience, to help these high-growth startups get off the ground and flourish," wrote Rosen, who is CEO and president of Dan Rosen & Associates, a technology investment and advisory firm

Although the multi-part mission of the SEC includes helping facilitate capital formation, the agency makes clear its "investor protection mission" has become most compelling, particularly after the excesses that led up to the "Great Recession."

Thus there is an amusing bit of irony as the SEC may move to "protect" a major segment of the high-net-worth angel-investor category by removing their "accredited" status while preparing to remove protections for scores or "unaccredited" investors by opening the door for them to do crowd-funding investment in startups.

Crowd funding is a concept spawned by legislation known as the JOBS Act, passed by Congress four years ago to permit entrepreneurs or a start-up business to raise up to a $1million a year by selling equity on the internet to up to 500 "unaccredited" investors. Some described passage of the bill and its signing by the president as a "democratization of investments." In essence, Congress felt those across the financial spectrum should all have a chance to own a piece of a company.

The ACA says a survey of its 12,000 members, who are the most active angel investors in the country, found that if the definition of accredited investor was changed to add an inflation factor, which is the standard being urged by those pressing for a change, more than 25 percent of its members would fall below the new threshold. The inflation factor would relate to the inflation that has occurred since 1972, when the accredited regulation first came about.

ACA, whose campaign to bring pressure against the change includes form letter and email template on its website, says such a change would be "devastating," particularly outside the angel-heavy population centers of New York, California and Boston. It claims the number of angel investors across the country outside those three areas would fall by one third.

Even so, not all angels oppose raising the bar for individuals to quality as accredited investors.

Steven J. Schueth, president of First Affirmative Financial Network in Colorado Springs, who has been a leader in the sustainable and responsible investment industry for more than 20 years and created the prominent SRI Conference that rotates annually around the West, is one who isn't sure a change would be bad.

"With my fiduciary duty hat on, I could make the argument that an investor with only $1 million in liquid, investable net worth is probably too small to be investing in private deals," Scheuth said in an email exchange. "I don't think someone with only $1 million has any business playing in this game."

I have assumed that increasing the qualification for accredited investor might have a large impact on sustainable and renewable startups seeking investment and asked Schueth if there might be less S-R investing.

"Perhaps there would be, but would that be bad?  Maybe for entrepreneurs who are looking for capital from less-than-the-most savvy investors," he said. "But would it be bad for investors who now only meet the minimum accredited investor threshold?  Not in most cases.  There's a reason those rules were promulgated in 1972-to protect some people from themselves."

There are some investors who with some portion of their portfolio seek higher positive impact and care less about risk adjusted returns," Schueth added. "When I talk with these people, I try to help them think about making these kinds of investments out of their philanthropy budget; or at least know that the likelihood of making little or no financial return is a high probability."

I asked Schueth, whom I had quoted in previous columns because of his reputation in the sustainable and renewable investments arena, whether he thought it was interesting that while Congressional direction may guide a boost in what it takes to be qualified investor, crowd-funding is opening the door, also at congressional direction, to let everyone in.

"I don't believe I have ever heard anyone claim that Congress is a rational beast," he replied. 

Continue reading
  3151 Hits
  0 Comments
3151 Hits
0 Comments

State crowd-funding legislation to ease raising money for startups gets early legislative focus

A proposal that would permit entrepreneurs to raise up to $1 million a year from small investors through what's known as crowd funding, which is seen as a tool to both facilitate the launch new companies and create jobs, will get its initial hearing before the Washington Legislature the end of this week.

 

Washington is among a handful of states where lawmakers have decided that no matter what finally happens with long-awaited implementation of a federal crowd-funding law, they want to move ahead at the state level to open new funding doors for entrepreneurs and startups. And the scheduled hearing Friday may suggest there's some momentum to get the bill passed soon.


The bill (HB2023) is viewed by legislative supporters, and there is no visible opposition, as "a tool for small-business growth all around the state" as well as a potential lure to attract would-be entrepreneurs in other states to move here to launch their business. Only state residents could raise equity under the proposed law and only state residents could buy shares in the companies.

 

Rep.  Cyrus Habib

The federal crowd-funding legislation was passed by Congress in the spring of 2012 as the JOBS Act and directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to come up with the rules that would allow entrepreneurs to begin raising funds under the act. The SEC has moved at a glacial pace in implementing the rules and may still be as much as a year away from final approval to allow crowd funding to begin.

 

If supporters of the bill in the Washington Legislature are successful, the state measure will become law and create the opportunity for entrepreneurs in this state to begin using crowd-funding to raise money from large groups of small investors, primarily on the Internet, before the federal legislation even becomes operative.

 

The fact that Washington and a handful of other states are pressing ahead without regard to what happens in Washington, D.C., is an example of a growing realization that it has become more workable for legislation and regulation to be done at the state level. The reason for that emerging sentiment isn't just the gridlock that allows little to get done in Washington, but also the brainlock that occurs when something does get approved in Congress and is then turned over to the bureaucracy and regulators to implement.

 

Rep. Jeff Morris

HB2023, sponsored by Rep. Cyrus Habib, whose 48th District spans Redmond, Bellevue and Kirkland, would like the federal act allow companies to raise up to $1 million a year from small investors. The Internet is viewed as the most likely vehicle to reach large numbers of those small investors, who would be permitted to invest a maximum of $2,000.

 

Rep. Jeff Morris, D-Mount Vernon, a key supporter of the state legislative proposal, is one who thinks state legislation will serve the needs of both start-up entrepreneurs and small investors who would like to have equity in such companies better than the eventual federal act.


"The federal crowd-funding law, even once rules are in place, is going to require companies to work through an intermediary and is likely to have compliance expenses that will be cost-prohibitive for many start-ups," said Morris.


Morris, who is a co-founder of the Northwest Energy Angels and former director of the Northwest Energy Technology Collaborative (NWETC) at the Washington Technology Center (WTC), is an angel investor far more knowledgeable on the topic of funding start-ups than might be expected of legislators.


The SEC has produced more than 500 pages of proposed rules as it nears the point, more than 18 months after the legislation was approved by Congress, of clearing the way for entrepreneurs to actually begin raising money under the act. But observers think the

90-day comment period will likely produce voluminous comments that will cause the SEC to extend the time when the rules actually go into effect until late this year or early next.

 

Habib says flatly it would be "highly undesirable" for entrepreneurs to have only the federal legislation to deal with in seeking to employ the crowd-funding concept of raising money and selling equity.

 

"I think it will be far easier for start-up entrepreneurs to deal with local regulators who, can design rules that fit our culture, that are less burdensome to issuers, and give us the opportunity to create our own fund-raising product," said Habib, a Seattle attorney who works with many small firms.

 

Habib's first attempt at the bill last session would have imposed an excise tax of 3 to 5 percent, a tax of up to $50,000 on a $1 million fund raise, with the explanation that it was necessary to cover costs the state would incur in things like more consumer protection for investors and added costs for state oversight of the crowd-funding activity.

 

But he has backed off of that in the current version, saying thatrather than imposing an excise tax, "we will give authority to regulators to decide what kind of a fee to impose on the entrepreneurs. The program has to pay for itself, but we decided it's best to leave that to the Department of Financial Institutions to determine what's necessary to achieve that."

 

It was Habib who made the observation that the bill would be a tool for economic development for all parts of the state.

"Using equity crowd funding for those who can't just start a business without money and don't happen to know a friendly millionaire will be a way to raise capital for small businesses anywhere in the state," Habib said.

 

And he and Morris both suggested that small economic development organizations or chambers of commerce could serve the role of gatekeeper, meaning someone to fill the legally required role of an entity to sign off on the legitimacy of the fund-raising effort, to say it wasn't a scam or fraud. Otherwise the gatekeepers would be attorneys, accountants or similar professionals who would be involved in reviewing the legitimacy of would-be entrepreneurs.

 

Scott Jarvis, director of the state Department of Financial Institutions, which has been working closely with lawmakers as the legislation has taken shape, says it is "closely monitoring the SEC's final action to be sure the state legislation avoids conflict with it or sends confusing messages."

 

He said lawmakers and his department must also provide some sort of cost benefit analysis to ensure that any costs incurred by the state or the agency must be provided for and that will depend, in part, on the size of the group of entrepreneurs seeking to raise money through crowd funding.

 

"To steal liberally from 'Field of Dreams,' there is a question as to'If we build it, will they come in sufficient numbers as to justify the costs,'" Jarvis quipped.

 

Among angel investors in favor of the proposed state legislation is Tom Simpson, longtime venture capitalist now head of the Spokane Angel Alliance, who suggests "it will broaden the capital-formation alternatives for certain unique, early-stage enterprises not otherwise candidates for traditional angel or v.c. funding."

 

 

In fact, Simpson shares the view of many angel investors that traditional funding won't likely follow crowd-funded businesses but adds "as long as everyone knows the pros and cons, I expect this form of fund raising to stimulate the growth of new, innovative businesses in this state."

Continue reading
  3064 Hits
  0 Comments
3064 Hits
0 Comments

Long wait for SEC's crowd-funding rules stirs legislature to consider state-level measures

It's now been a year since Congress, with a bipartisan display remarkable for this politically dysfunctional era, passed the JOBS Act that was touted as a breakthrough for funding entrepreneurial start-ups and thus eventually creating jobs.

 

Well, the entrepreneurs are still waiting for the rules that would let them proceed to launch businesses by using internet websites to gather small amounts of money from large numbers of people online.

 

 The rules are to be written by the Securities and Exchange Commission where, despite repeated pressure from some members of Congress who really care about the issue rather than merely having voted for a JOBS bill in an election year, there's been no action.

 

But some states, including Washington, have decided they're tired of waiting and are seeking to proceed on their own. In fact, two bills that would allow Washington entrepreneurs to raise up to $1 million a year from Washington residents on the Internet have been filed in the state House of Representatives, one of the measure described as "democratizing venture capital."
  
And sponsors of the measures filed in this state say they are needed regardless of what kind of rules the SEC finally brings forth. The key sponsor of one of the bills, Rep. Cyrus Habib, D-Bellevue, frankly makes clear details of his bill (HB2023) are being worked on to groom the measure for serious consideration in the 2014 session.
Rep. cyrus habib
Rep. Cyrus Habib

 

The measure Congress passed last May was officially called the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act by the clever bill drafters who attach can't-oppose names and acronyms to legislation to help ensure that balky lawmakers will find it difficult to vote against. Few lawmakers wanted to vote against JOBS in an election year.

 

Despite the congressionally mandated 180-day timeframe to the SEC, whose then-chair had large misgivings about the legislation, that time passed, as did a promised end-of-year date. Now the SEC has a new chairman, Mary Jo White, who has promised Congress she will make issuing the rules a priority.

 

If there's any doubt that there's a queuing up of entrepreneurs and those who would be involved in crowd funding, consider that the LinkedIn group "CrowdSourcing and CrowdFunding" has over 19,000 members.

 

Both supporters, who view the legislation as a major breakthrough for funding startups, and critics, who are convinced it's a funding disaster in the making, are awaiting the opportunity to be proven right once the rules allow the process to begin.

Tom simpson

Tom Simpson,

angel supporter

 

Tom Simpson, the long-time venture capitalist who now runs the Spokane Angel Alliance, thinks if the rules are "effectively drafted and supported, we would see large amounts of liquid capital flowing into emerging companies, in amounts even greater than during the pre-Sarbanes-Oxley, IPO glory days."

 

"Current regulations are chocking our nation's entrepreneurial fuel tanks," he added.

 

Bill Payne, generally regarded as the Dean of Angel Investors because of the role he plays in providing guidance to angel groups both in this country and internationally, sees a possibility that the regulations to be issues by the SEC "will be so restrictive that crowd funding will be viewed as not worth the effort."  

 

Bill Payne

   Bill Payne,

not a fan

 

Payne, who summers in Montana and winters in the Las Vegas area and who has launched four angel-investor groups around the West, has been a critic of the crowd-funding legislation from the outlet and says "I am less excited about crowd funding now than I was when it was passed."

 

"My guess is that entrepreneurs' advisors have suggested they seek angel capital instead of crowd funding," added Payne, who told me for a column I did a year ago that he viewed crowd funding "as a trainwreck waiting to happen" because he felt "a lot of investors will get scammed."

 

An issue that may further delay SEC action, and provide an added challenge for the internet masses to begin buying shares in companies via the Internet, is the potential sales tax liability in a crowd-funding project.

 

The U.S. Senate this week approved giving the 45 states that currently charge sales taxes the right to require large online retailers to collect tax on purchases made by their residents. The legislation must still clear the House, but political observers give it a good chance for passage and while it would only apply to online sellers that have sales of at least $1 million in states where they don't have physical operations, the SEC may decide to wait final determination on the bill.

 

Habib's bill would impose an excise tax of somewhere between 3 and 5 percent on investors, which Habib explains as necessary to cover costs the state would incur in things like more consumer protection for investors and added costs for state oversight of the crowd-funding activity.

  

"We can't go to the legislature in this financial environment ask for legislation to try something new and not cover the fiscal impact," habib added.

  

Rep. Frank Morris, D-Mount Vernon, who filed the other Washington state bill (HB2054)also a Democrat, said the state proposal is important regardless of SEC rules.

Rep. Frank Morris
Rep. Frank Morris

 

"The federal crowdfunding law, even once rules are in place, is going to require companies to work through an intermediary and is likely to have compliance costs that are cost-prohibitive for many start-ups," Morris said.

 

"The intent of the state legislation is to facilitate crowdfunding for Washington investors in Washington companies, with regulation that is protective of consumers, but less cost-prohibitive."

  

Bill Beatty, Securities Administrator for the state Department of Financial Institutions, points out that any offerings under state legislation would be "intrastate only, that is, limited to Washington Companies offering to Washington investors," adding such legislation at the state level doesn't require SEC approval.

 

Meanwhile, interest on the part of entrepreneurs and businesses that hope to be a part of the process continues to grow.

 

A business called Crowdfund Productions LLC is putting on Pro and Contra Conferences around the West, including one last week and Denver.

 

 

A Pro and Contra Conference is schedule for Seattle in September, by which time the SEC rules may be out, opening the door for a lot more pros and cons to be aimed by entrepreneurs and support groups.

Continue reading
  3053 Hits
  0 Comments
3053 Hits
0 Comments

SEC's struggle with rules for start-up fundraising troubles some angel investors

The federal JOBS Act aimed at opening the door for entrepreneurs to reach out to crowds of potential investors on the internet appears, ironically, to be hung up at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the issue of tighter restrictions on entrepreneurs who seek more sophisticated investors.

 

In fact, angel-investor leaders are concerned that the SEC's deliberations may produce rules that make it harder for entrepreneurs to raise money from those wealthier individuals, referred to as "accredited" investors. 

 

Liz Marchi
Liz Marchi

The reason is that Congress decided that entrepreneurs would have to validate investor accreditation, rather than being able to take the word of investors that they were "accredited," as has been the case until now. But the lawmakers left it to the SEC to figure out how to impose rules for such "validation."

 

"I don't think anyone in Congress was thinking about the actual impact the change would have on accredited-investor rules," said Liz Marchi, whose Frontier Angel Fund, Montana's first angel fund, has become one of the nation's most successful angel-investor groups. "That's why I think you see basically nothing being done at the SEC."

 

The legislation, officially the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, was passed by Congress in April and was designed to be a job creator by making it easier for entrepreneurs to raise capital and thus launch companies and create jobs. The first part of the bill would ease raising start-up capital through "crowdfunding" on the Internet and the second part to eliminate the prohibition against advertising and soliciting traditional "accredited" investors.

 

The SEC was given until yearend to determine the rules that would govern operation of crowd-funding efforts. But the portion dealing with accredited investors called for the SEC to figure out by July 4 how to implement rules to eliminate the prohibition against general solicitation and advertising in securities offerings.

 

The regulatory body missed that deadline but SEC chairman Mary Shapiro told Congress the agency would have the rules in place by end of summer. That target has now become year end, and the betting is that it'll be sometime in the new year before the rules are put forth.

 

The Angel Capital Association and angel investors like Seattle's Dan Rosen, who are closely involved in following the SEC deliberations and seeking to influence them, are hoping to get final SEC rules simple enough that entrepreneurs "don't have to jump through enormous hoops to prove investor accreditation."

 

The phrase angel leaders are using to indicate what's needed for those entrepreneurs seeking accredited investors is "safe harbor," meaning a safeguard for entrepreneurs that they have actually done some due diligence on the investors.

 

Rosen, a leader of Seattle's Alliance of Angels, says "we've been working with the SEC to come up with a compromise that will ensure there is a safe harbor. But if they come out with a rule that is not acceptable, we will go back to Congress and seek changes there."

 

What's causing much of the teeth-gnashing for entrepreneurs and those like ACA and Rosen looking out for their interests is the apparent difficulty the SEC is having figuring out just what are the "reasonable steps," that will be required of entrepreneurs.

 

The irony of, in essence, tightening the screws on entrepreneurs seeking funds from qualified investors is that those entrepreneurs, rather than the ones seeking limited amounts of money from crowds of small investors, are the ones most likely to be job creators.

 

Bill Payne, viewed by many as the dean of angel investors and a member of Marchi's Kalispell-based Frontier Angels, is critical of how Congress packaged the JOBS Act.

 

"The legislation does not appear to have been well thought-out and seems to be our Congress simply finding something upon which they could agree," said Payne, who was Entrepreneur in Residence at the Kauffman Foundation and was named angel investor of the year in both the U.S. and New Zealand.

 

In fact, the JOBS Act brought the best example of bipartisan support evidenced by Congress in the past four years.

 

"Congress was motivated on this legislation because the lawmakers finally figured out that entrepreneurs are at the heart of this country's future and there were few tools by which Congress could feel like it was playing a role in the country's economic future," said Marchi.

 

Marchi's angel fund has been proving recently that angel investing can be profitable for the angels as well as important for jobs and the economy.

 

Two of the fund's investments, Coeur d'Alene-based Pacinian, a maker of wafer-thin keyboards, and Bozeman-based LigoCyte Pharmateuticals Inc., were acquired by major companies in the past few months. Frontier had substantial stakes in both and thus got substantial rewards.

 

Pacinian, which represented 10 percent of Frontier's total fund, was sold to Silicon Valley tech firm Synaptics this summer for an initial $15 million plus a substantial additional amount in the future based on various factors.

 

And a substantial bridge-round investment Frontier made about four years ago in LigoCyte Pharmateuticals Inc. paid off big last month with the announcement that Japan's Takeda Pharmaceuticals' wholly-owned U. S. subsidiary was buying the Montana vaccine maker. The agreement provided for an upfront payment of $60 million and "future contingent considerations" for LigoCyte, whose lead product, a vaccine to prevent norovirus gastroenteritis, is in clinical development.

 

Marchi declined to discuss specifics of Frontier's multiples from the two sales. But she noted that the two exits will have returned the original investment capital to her members, "and perhaps even some profit. So every one of our other 10 investments can produce profits."

Continue reading
  3048 Hits
  0 Comments
3048 Hits
0 Comments

52°F

Seattle

Mostly Cloudy

Humidity: 63%

Wind: 14 mph

  • 24 Mar 2016 52°F 42°F
  • 25 Mar 2016 54°F 40°F
Banner 468 x 60 px