Jumpstart: how the new economy began for the IT sphere on January 1

On April 5, 2012, Barack Obama (this is the current American president) signed the JOBS Act (the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act). It entered into force on January 1, 2013.

Now I will tell a couple of common things about what it means, and why for startups, a lot of things will change. It is necessary to look in the complex together with the documents of the SEC (commission on securities). SEC is important here because the law itself (like many others) is rather a framework, and it is this organization that determines the specific details of its implementation.

One simple sentence: what does it all mean? - The explosion of the growth of IT projects in the United States. And, perhaps, the beginning of a new economy.

What changes the law?

JOBS Act allows small-cap companies, that is, so-called developing companies (start-ups) to attract funds from a wide range of investors. At the current stage, in order to accommodate a non-public company, they would need to make accommodation for up to 50 people, among whom certain categories of investors would not be included. Previously, it was necessary to be an accredited investor with the SEC - this is either income of 200 thousand dollars, or millions of assets.
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Once again: now any person can invest in a startup .

Why did big brokers oppose the adoption of the act?

Because large brokers signed an agreement with a judge of the state of New York five years ago that they do not have the right to promote companies that post on IPOs in their analytics. There was a very big story about the fact that JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch actively promoted to their customers those who were put on an IPO. And small companies are now not limited in this opportunity.

What are the requirements for a startup?

To receive investment from ordinary people, you need to attract no more than a million dollars during the calendar year. If the amount is more - this is an IPO "by the rules." The source is just crowdfunding and crowdinvesting (in fact, the laws use the term, which is an abbreviation of both of these concepts).

What does "only from this source" mean?

You can take a million in a loan, a million to get from a large investor, and another million to get through crowdinvesting. It will turn out three million per year, but only one of them will be received through the source source. This means, among other things, the possibility for very large companies to get a couple of "buns" in the form of a hundred or two "evangelists" of the project, social connections and an assessment before the IPO at a cost of 1-2 percent.

What is important to know about accommodation?

The general principle before the JOBS Act was this: the larger the company, the more stringent the requirements for it. Starting with a certain amount it was required to show in general all the accounting entries and all the assets to each of the investors. This, among other things, was done to ensure that any customer who purchases a piece of paper is fully informed of virtually every risk. That is, about the risk of liquidity, more precisely, the lack of liquidity, about the risk that it may lose all funds. The whole system of American investment is based on the fact that if the client is fully notified and signed the documents, then he can no longer automatically make a claim that he, conditionally speaking, was deceived. In Europe now, too, are going to this.

What happens now?

Now you can give either 2 thousand dollars, or 5% of income (with income for the year less than 100 thousand dollars), or 10% with income higher. If the amount was greater, the broker simply did not have the right to accept it (this is already a professional investor). If the total amount exceeded the possible million, some investors had to withdraw bids in order to “crawl” into the requirements. Restrictions on the number of people there. It turns out such a quasi-IPO, with fast paperwork and the absence of a whole heap of restrictions and formalities.

Can you do everything without papers?

Yes, everything is done via the Internet. Electronic document management in the US is already established. True, everything is difficult with Russian citizens - all the charms of the law apply only to Americans. Well, plus it is very difficult for Russian citizens to undergo compliance in American brokers, it is almost unreal. There is no direct prohibition, but in practice they sift out very quickly.

What does this mean for our projects?

If you manage to complete the quest with the registration of a company in the USA, then you can start collecting applications. It is clear that a piece of Kaspersky or Yandex will be torn off with their hands, but some candle factory in Novgorod will not be rolled - people will simply not sign, because they will not understand what it is and where. Accordingly, for tech startups this is good news, but for projects such as cafes or bakeries tied to geography is not very good (by the way, our future crowd-investing system, for which the legal basis is almost ready, is a way out for them, but this is a separate topic).

And one more nice feature - if you think about it, we are now in an advantageous position with respect to US citizens. They have a law that limits their investment opportunities, we do not. In the Russian Federation there is no regulation of such relations, those law enforcement practice on them, which means they are regulated to a much lesser extent than now in the United States. That is, the question is only in the correct “legal binding” of an investment project for a startup, even for a not very large one.

Which major companies are interested in?

1. Those who need an assessment. Selling a couple of percent of the shares - this is immediately estimated "directly." For example, we have so recently made Tinkof, which has become very expensive.
2. For those who need money here and now. Taking cash from individuals is more than a serious push for many.
3. Those who need the most simple procedure for the sale of shares. That is - working with crowdinvesting, where we are talking not about dozens of people, but about hundreds and thousands.

Brokers and financial portals are interested in that you can track the work with online applications, that is, see the rating of demand for each project. Here is the most fun: after all, while there is no demand for a project, everyone is sitting on their money. As soon as someone starts to invest, the others see that there is movement, and a wave begins. This is a very important factor for these types of accommodations. And this opens up another possibility - you can sell not the shares themselves, but the applications for them. Roughly speaking, the promise of the level “if Yandex were for sale, I would buy a share.” And then, when Yandex sees a ready-made pool of promises, it can be an incentive to sell 1% (because valuation, cash, people).

How much more are we to the same beautiful moment?

We have almost laid the legal basis for crowdinvesting. In principle, something can be done now (we are already doing - from the official launch of the project in a couple of months it will be clear how it went). Of the important parts of the mosaic, there is not enough opportunity to work with contracts for individuals directly without paper. Ideally, you also need an electronic passport - and they are already doing it on the card, on which it will be possible to log in to make transactions. So I think, from 2 to 4 years - and we will begin the same explosion of growth of small projects.