Dear Readers: This is a post I co-wrote with Joe Wallin, who has published the almost identical post here.
If you are investing in early stage companies, there are certain deal terms you want.
Most you probably know already: if it’s a round of convertible notes, you want a discount and a cap; if it’s a priced round, you want a liquidation preference. Etc.
But there is a new thing you need to add to your list of “must haves.”
You now want your investment documents to include a Section 4(a)(7) covenant.
What the heck is Section 4(a)(7)?
Section 4(a)(7) is a new federal securities law that basically says, it’s OK for you to sell your investment in a private company, as long as you don’t generally advertise the securities for sale, sell to another accredited investor, and the company cooperates with certain information requirements.
The new federal law trumps state law. So state law won’t hold you up.
Unlike the existing resale exemption most commonly used, there is no holding period required under this new law.
What is a Section 4(a)(7) covenant?
This new law is great—but you need the company’s assistance to access it, because the law requires the company to provide certain information to the purchaser.
So, get this covenant in your investment documents, and it may be easier for you to later sell your shares.
You can find draft covenants to include in your securities purchase agreements here.
And if you’re a founder or exec, don’t despair: Section 4(a)(7) will work for you, too. For a longer, in depth discussion of the new law, see this article in TechCrunch.
The picture here was taken by Joe Wallin, who was on a panel with me, Gary Kocher of K&L Gates, Tom Alberg of Madrona Ventures, and Dan Rosen of the Alliance of Angels, talking to the Angel Capital Association's NW Regional Meeting about all the new laws and regulations and SEC guidance recently hatched or in the works that impact angel investing. Really great spirit and energy among the angels who assembled.
One thing we talked about was a new law that should make it easier for angels to sell private company stock, provided they find an(other) accredited investor interested in buying, and provided that the company cooperates and provides certain information.
You can read about this more in a TechCrunch article that Joe, Josh Maher and John Myer wrote which ran yesterday. Go here to see a model pair of covenants that Joe, Gary and I prepared to share with the attendees of the ACA NW Regional Meeting. When negotiating with a company on including such covenants in your angel investment, no doubt the company is going to have its own thoughts and priorities, and in every case you will need to customize any model covenants to fit your own circumstances (in other words, the models are not legal advice; consult your lawyer).
"On a relative basis, issuances claiming the new Rule 506(c) exemption have accounted for only 2.1% of the reported capital raised pursuant to Rule 506 since becoming effective in September 2014."
So reads a key finding of a report, Capital Raising in the U.S.: An Analysis of the Market for Unregistered Securities Offerings, 2009-2014, by Scott Baugess, Rachita Gullapalli and Vladimir Ivanov, staff at the SEC's Divisio of Economic and Risk Analysis. They are speaking about the way Rule 506 under Reg D was reformed by rulemaking pursuant to the JOBS Act, to permit general solicitation while preserving a Rule 506 exemption that is preemptive of state law, as long as all purchasers are verified to be accredited investors.
Rule 506(c) should be a big deal, and we should be seeing more "public" private offerings, like the one from the brewpub chain McMenamins, which my colleague, Jordan Rood, wrote about here.
But we aren't, not yet.
So far, old Rule 506, now re-styled Rule 506(b), is the Donald Trump to Reg D's Jeb Bush. The authors of the SEC staff report have ideas why:
The novelty of the 506(c) provisions after decades on non-permissibility of general solicitation in Regulation D offerings may be one reason why Rule 506(b) continues to dominate the Regulation D market. In particular, issuers with pre-existing sources of financing and/or intermediation channels may not yet have a need for the new flexibility. Other issuers may become more comfortable with market practices as they develop over time, including among other things, certainty over what constitutes general solicitation. There may also be concerns about the added burden or appropriate levels of verification of the accredited investor status of all purchasers, for which efficient market solutions may develop over time.
And might there be a whiff of the taint of adverse selection that one would readily associate with Title III crowdfunded deals. The authors allow that this might be so:
It is possible that some sophisticated investors may perceive the election of the 506(c) exemption as a signal that issuers anticipate difficulties in raising sufficient capital and consequently consider it a less attractive offering, which could also dissuade issuers from utilizing the new exemption for their financing needs.
I yet think this will change. Just not any time tomorrow.
Image: scene from Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
Richard Posner's "Reflections on Judging" is not a new book. It was published in 2013, and it appears to adapt prior articles and other writings of Judge Posner on the same themes. But I only just read the book over a short vacation in Palm Springs, California, and in any case it hasn't dated in three years (except perhaps with respect to his very brief discussion of MOOCs). I say it remains current because I want to encourage you to pick it up and read it.
Come to think of it, with the passing of Antonin Scalia, "Reflections on Judging" couldn't be more timely. One of Judge Posner's arguments - perhaps the central one, or at least a facet of his thesis that complexity is threating to overwhelm justice - is that Justice Scalia's championing of "originalism" has distracted judges from engaging the complexity of the real world, making law a poorer servant to society than it should be. It's quite fun - I hope less in a mean-spirited way than in a civicly-minded intellectual way - to see Judge Posner ridicule Justice Scalia's performances as amateur historian.
Nor is it the case that justice is simplified (simplification might at least be a beneficial byproduct, you might think) when emulating Justice Scalia's stubborn refusal, at least professionally speaking, to live in the present. In aid of his life-long campaign of distraction, Scalia propounded "canons of construction," or rules of interpretation, that, according to Posner, are highly complex and internally inconsistent. Study and practice of these cannons focus a judge's attention ever inward, train him to fetishize texts which to a normal person appear plainly imperfect. For all the close reading, meaning is beside the point, and law is an afterthought. As you might suspect, methods of interpretation that forbid reference to society, culture, the economy, demographics, values and facts give the judge unrestricted license to pursue personal political agendas.
Refreshingly, Judge Posner says that Scalia's cannons of construction are a waste of time. Not a single one is helpful! He feels interpretation is a natural function of the human mind, and it is this more natural human function which not just welcomes but runs with intellectual curiosity to the world as it is, to the facts on the ground, to the understandings of science, to the study of cultures, for reference, context and guidance.
Posner does get meta with respect to interpretation in this respect: he believes that social science and psychology show that humans have cognitive biases that make their memories and opinions unreliable, and that it behooves a judge to be cognizant of these and self-reflective of her own inevitable biases. (One of these he calls out in this book is the cognitive heuristic of "anchoring," which I had not known of before. I educated myself on this concept by reading a Wikipedia article. This was, I now know, a very Posner-like strategy to obtain a working knowledge of a concept in the service of a task at hand.)
The best thing about this book is that Judge Posner's prose style is entertaining and completely non-judicial. And apparantly he writes his judicial opinions in the same voice!
I'm going to read more of Judge Posner's work. If you know of a discussion group organized around his writing, please let me know.
$25,000 is a common minimum investment in startup financings, at least for those conducted offline (not through an accredited crowdfunding platform).
"The Commission could consider leaving the current income and net worth thresholds in the accredited investor definition in place, but limiting investments for individuals who qualify as accredited investors solely based on those thresholds to a percentage of their income or net worth (e.g., 10% of prior year income or 10% of net worth, as applicable, per issuer, in any 12-month period)."
Those of you that enjoy beer or securities laws (or both), may have recently seen news articles from various Puget Sound media outlets amorphously mentioning “crowdfunding” when reporting on the development and grand opening of the new McMenamins Anderson School entertainment complex in Bothell. In developing the Anderson School project, McMenamins applied its expertise in creating funky, yet accessible, recreation properties to transform an old, empty middle school building into a complex with a hotel, brewery, restaurants, bars, music and event space and a public swimming pool, in partnership with the City of Bothell.
The project has a successful precedent in the McMenamins Kennedy School complex in Portland, and the early reviews on the Anderson School have been quite positive, so much so, that McMenamins recently announced that it would be moving forward with a similar project at the old Elks Lodge in Tacoma.
However, beyond applying its tried and true aesthetic to transform the Anderson School, McMenamins broke new financing ground by using the Rule 506(c) private offering exemption to generally solicit accredited investors via the internet. The company raised approximately $6.3 million (with $250K as the minimum investment) in four months to obtain the initial equity for kickstarting development in the property. This experiment worked so well, the Company intends to use it again in connection with financing the forthcoming Tacoma project.
For those curious about the completed Anderson School deal terms, the offering website is still up, and you can still access all the LLC unit offering documents here. Additionally, a similar site is now up for the Elks Lodge project with initial information about the project and investment terms, however, the offering documents appear to be forthcoming, and no securities appear to be offered yet. Though it does appear similar to the Anderson School project, in that investors will receive a preferred return of 8% flowing from the proceeds of the long-term lease of the property to a McMenamins entity, among other terms.
Conducting private offerings publicly over the internet may sound like a contradiction in terms, and until recently that was the case. However, as part of the federal JOBS Act of 2012, Congress instructed the Securities and Exchange Commission to implement rules allowing general solicitation in a private offering if securities are sold only to accredited investors. As a result, the SEC amended Rule 506 to create Rule 506(c), which allows for general solicitation in a private offering, so long as the issuer takes reasonable steps to verify that sales are made only to accredited investors.
This “verification” standard is a heightened requirement in comparison to the “old-fashioned” Rule 506(b) exemption, which only requires issuers to have a “reasonable belief” that investors are accredited, which may include self-certification by the investor. Although the SEC has provided a set of non-exclusive safe harbors for 506(c) verification, including by bank/brokerage statements, tax returns or statement by a third-party attorney or accountant, this requirement has had a chilling effect on the use of Rule 506(c), as the admission of even one unaccredited investor will disqualify the issuer from use of the exemption, and if any general solicitation has occurred, the issuer will be disqualified from relying on any other exemptions from registration, which could result in significant civil and administrative penalties. As such, using Rule 506(c) has been described as similar to walking on a tightrope without a net.
But back to McMenamins, who rather than worry about the lack of net, just followed the clear rules set forth by the SEC to make sure they didn’t lose their balance. In particular, even though all of the offering information was publicly available on the internet, each prospective investor had to fill out a questionnaire, and submit it to the company counsel with supporting documentation to meet the aforementioned verification steps. Only once the company had “verified” a prospective investor’s accredited status, would any subscription be accepted.
Although some investors may not wish to undergo such scrutiny, this did not seem to be an obstacle for McMenamins, a brand with significant brand and consumer cachet. The Tacoma News Tribune reported that the company raised the $6.3 million from 23 investors (in an offering up to $8 million, per the SEC filing and company offering documents), and now intends to raise up to $10 million for the Elks Lodge project (with a $150K minimum investment), with preliminary indications of interest already received from prior investors.
The use of Rule 506(c) by a company like McMenamins is instructive. By working with competent counsel to safely stay within the investor verification guidance set forth by the SEC, the company was able to broadly reach out to its natural constituency of fans as prospective investors. Simultaneously, it was also able to avail itself of the broad benefits of the Rule 506 exemption, including the ability to raise an unlimited amount of money from an unlimited number of accredited investors, blue sky preemption and “relaxed” disclosure standards, as sales were only made to accredited investors (that said, the company did provide fulsome disclosure materials to prospective investors).
Accredited “crowdfunding” as a concept is generally associated with technology startups and angel investors, but the success McMenamins has had demonstrates that Rule 506(c) is a viable and potentially attractive, offering alternative for companies across a range of industries that may be able to draw widely upon accredited investor interest, rather than being subject to the limited personal networks required by the “substantive, pre-existing relationship” standard of Rule 506(b).
In addition to monitoring the development of these projects, I intend to personally kick the tires at the Anderson School soon by enjoying a McMenamins Terminator Stout, and the always delicious Cajun tater tots.
Image: detail from McMenamins webpage.
Note from Bill: Before returning to private practice, my colleague, Jordan Rood, worked as a state securities regulator. What's more, Jordan was directly involved in the implementation of the crowdfunding law my friend Joe Wallin was so instrumental in driving into law in the State of Washington. I asked Jordan to give us his perspective on how the new federal Regulation Crowdfunding, promulgated by the SEC pursuant to Title III of the JOBS Act, compares with Washington State's crowdfunding law. Here are his thoughts, in Q&A format.
Q: Jordan, before you re-entered private practice, you worked for a few years as a state securities regulator for Washington State. During your time there, I understand you were the person tasked with writing and implementing the Washington crowdfunding rules, which is based on the legislation Joe Wallin proposed and got passed through the sponsorship of Cyrus Habib. So you presumably know the Washington crowdfunding law well. Based on that knowledge base, how do you rate the new federal crowdfunding rules, by comparison?
Great question, Bill. There are actually many similarities between the Washington and federal crowdfunding rules, as certain provisions of the Washington state bill and administrative rules draw from the federal rules. However, there are also some very key differences to consider between the two that make the particular circumstances of an issuer a dispositive factor in determining whether the federal or Washington crowdfunding exemption makes the most sense. For locally-oriented issuers, the Washington exemption may prove feasible, whereas an issuer with greater horizons may find the federal exemption, or another exemption, a better fit.
First, some of the similarities include:
However, as noted above, there are some significant differences between the federal and the Washington State crowdfunding exemptions:
Q: Should a startup based in Washington use the Washington crowdfunding rules, or should it use the federal rules?
As noted above, there are key differences between the two that may make one more attractive than the other based on the specific circumstances of the issuer. For a locally-oriented issuer (e.g. a microbrewery), the Washington exemption may make the most sense, as the Rule 147 restrictions may be less burdensome, the offering cost is likely lower as the issuer may market the offering directly and there is no requirement that financial statements be audited or reviewed by an independent accountant.However, for an issuer that intends to generate substantial business outside Washington, the federal exemption would be the vehicle of choice, as the Rule 147 restrictions would not apply. Although some of the offering and accounting costs may be higher, the issuer will be able to reach a wider, national audience for its offering, potentially increasing its chances of meeting its funding goals, and enhancing its exposure to customers. The issuer may also be able to issuer convertible debt, or other preferred securities that aren’t subject to the requirements of the Washington exemption, as well.
Q: In what ways might Reg A+ make more sense?
Regulation A+ may make more sense for issuers that will need to raise additional proceeds and/or reach a wider investor base, as the issuer may raise up to $50 million (as opposed to the $1 million allowed under the Washington and federal crowdfunding exemptions), and the offering may be advertised in up to all 50 states. Particularly for an issuer that is relying on the federal exemption, Regulation A+ may be a more attractive option as the issuer will already be required to spend a significant amount of money on the offering due to the legal costs of organizing the offering, preparing the offering circular and incurring the costs of a broker-dealer or crowdfunding intermediary to market the offering. As it is conceivable that these costs may rise into the realm of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, it may make more sense for the issuer to spend the additional money required to prepare a Form 1-A offering circular, and continued reporting requirement, if it is able to raise a significantly higher amount of money under Regulation A+. However, Regulation A+ does have higher regulatory hurdles to clear before the offering may become effective. “Tier 1” offerings, which may include offerings under $20 million, are subject to review and commentary by the SEC and each state securities division where the securities will be sold, and “Tier 2” offerings, which may be up to $50 million, are subject to continuing federal reporting requirements after the conclusion of the offering, as long as there are securities from the offering outstanding.
Q: Gosh, lots of strings and conditions and requirements and expenses. Any other alternatives?
Another “crowdfunding” vehicle arising from the federal JOBS Act of 2012, was the creation of Rule 506(c) which allowed for “accredited crowdfunding” as an alternative to the “old-fashioned” Rule 506 private placement exemption that accounts for the vast majority of private securities offerings. Rule 506(c) allows an issuer to raise an unlimited amount of money, from an unlimited number of investors, through “generally solicitation” (i.e. publicly advertising) its private securities offering, which historically has been prohibited under federal and state securities laws. A key condition, however, is that the issuer must verify that each investor is accredited. This means that the issuer must actually verify the issuer is “accredited” by obtaining tax returns, bank statements, the opinion of counsel or an accountant or other method by which the issuer can actually establish accredited status. The SEC Rule 501 definition of “accredited investor” includes individuals who have made $200,000 over the prior two years ($300,000 with spouse), or have a net worth of $1 million, excluding the value of the individual’s primary residence. The definition also sets forth multiple institutional investors who will meet the definition, as well. While this is a new area of the law that has been showing promise, the risk involved is that the admission of even one unaccredited investor will disqualify the issuer from relying on Rule 506(c), but will leave it without another private offering exemption to claim if it has engaged in any general solicitation in connection with the offering
Q: You can always do it the old fashioned way, right?
In creating these new crowdfunding exemptions (crowdfunding rules, Regulation A+, Rule 506(c)), Congress and the SEC have left in place the “old-fashioned” 506(b) exemption, which remains the primary way by which issuers conduct private securities offerings. Rule 506(b) allows for issuer’s to raise an unlimited amount of money, from an unlimited number of accredited investors, so long as no “general solicitation” is conducted in connection with the offering, and that each investor has a substantive, pre-existing relationship with the issuer or person offering the securities of its behalf. A key feature here (and in 506(c)) is that the disclosure required to be provided about the issuer in connection with the offering is relaxed for sales to accredited investors. As such, most 506(b) offerings are only sold to accredited investors (even though the Rule allows for the sale of up to 35 non-accredited investors), as the sale to any unaccredited investors requires significantly heightened disclosure to such investors, which can be costly and burdensome to provide, and may increase the exposure of an issuer to liability under federal and state securities acts.
The following is adapted from remarks prepared for the Angel Capital Association's 2015 Angel Insights Exchange, held in New Orleans the week of November 9. I am the volunteer chair of an advisory council to the ACA, but the views I express below are personal to me, and not a reflection of ACA views or policy; nor are they a reflection of views of my law firm.
As we all know, Dodd-Frank (2010) and the JOBS Act (2012) brought big changes to the rules that govern what’s okay and what’s not okay in the world of federal exemptions from securities registration requirements.
One of the biggest reforms – permitting startups and other private companies to advertise a securities offering, provided that all purchasers are accredited investors – has caused the most consternation, at least in the early implementation. That’s largely because this particular reform – “lifting the ban on general solicitation” in Rule 506, the primary federal exemption on which almost all angel-backed companies rely – came with a catch. The catch is this: if you advertise or otherwise “generally solicit,” you will have a newly-invented1 and heightened burden to verify the accredited investor status of your purchasers.
This has caused many entrepreneurs and angels to shun Rule 506(c). Because the new rules made clear that the old rule (now called Rule 506(b)) remains available on a parallel track, you can still raise your money privately the old way; the heightened verification burden will not apply.2
But still there are gray areas: what about demo days; what about online platforms that restrict access so that only accredited investors can see deals; what about angels syndicating deals with other angels? In the early days of implementation of these reforms, people are worried – even more than they were before the JOBS Act, it seems3 – on whether they might trip accidently into conduct that could be deemed “general solicitation.”
Thankfully, we’ve had new guidance from the SEC this year pertinent to the quandary of “general solicitation” and what we might call the 506(b)/506(c) divide. 2015 has brought us:
The theme of the new SEC guidance is this: a “pre-existing, substantive relationship” can be a terrific antidote to the virus4 of “general solicitation.”
Now, the concept of the pre-existing, substantive business relationship has been around for a long time. It’s been a way of demonstrating that a given deal is indeed private, and prior guidance from the SEC has long held that an issuer can extend the utility of the concept by including, not only persons the issuer knows, but also the relationships of a broker dealer participating in a given offering.
The new SEC guidance, however, now makes it expressly clear that it’s more than okay for an issuer to be introduced by an angel to other angels the issuer might be meeting for the first time, without tripping into “general solicitation.”5 Here’s an excerpt from the answer to Question 256.27:
[W]e acknowledge that groups of experienced, sophisticated investors, such as “angel investors,” share information about offerings through their network and members . . . may introduce [the] issuer to other members. Issuers . . . may be able to rely on those members’ network to establish a reasonable belief that other offerees in the network have the necessary financial experience and sophistication.
Similarly, the new SEC guidance at Question 256.33 states that demo days can be “insulated” by the pre-existing, substantive relationships that a demo day organizer has with attendees:
Where a presentation by the issuer involves an offer of a security, the presentation at a demo day or venture fair may not constitute a general solicitation if, for example, attendance at the demo day or venture fair is limited to persons with whom the issuer or the organizer of the event has a pre-existing, substantive relationship or have been contacted through an informal, personal network [of angels] as described in Question 256.27.
Finally, I want to highlight the Citizen VC No Action Letter, because it speaks to what an online angel investing platform might do, should it wish to remain under the ambit of Rule 506(b). Here’s how Dan DeWolfe, a member of the ACA Advisory Council and the attorney who wrote the no-action request on behalf of Citizen VC, summarized in a blog post (co-written with Samuel Asher Effron) his take on the import of this particular guidance:
In essence, the approach under the CVC Letter is to make the online private placement offering similar in policies and procedures to an offline private placement. The pre-existing relationship is not time based nor is it satisfied by answering a mere two questions. Rather, the establishment of a pre-existing relationship depends on the QUALITY of the relationship between the issuer and a potential investor. While the vast majority of online offerings will clearly fall within the new Rule 506(c), the CVC Letter does spell out a way to conduct a true private placement in a password protected web page that does not give rise to a general solicitation.
How can an online platform be sure it is not using general solicitation? That’s right, the answer is in line with the guidance theme for 2015: establish a substantive, pre-existing relationship with prospective investors. In the case of online platforms, establishing such a relationship must occur prior to, and not in the context of, a given offering by an issuer on the platform.
Photo credit: Paul Kline (Creative Commons)
1. On the “newly invented” nature of the verification burden imposed by offerings that are generally solicited pursuant to new Rule 506(c): many securities lawyers might emphasize that Rule 506 has always, always required an issuer to have a reasonable basis on which to conclude that its purchasers were accredited. I myself predict that the distinctions between 506(b) and 506(c), on the point of verification, will inevitably blur over time. But it is certainly fair to say that current industry practices that pass muster as sufficient under 506(b) do not pass muster under 506(c).
2. It’s fair, and probably important, to point out that the verification pitfall is connected with another aspect of Rule 506(c) that is scary to startup and emerging company lawyers, and should be to entrepreneurs and angels as well: if you’re relying on an exemption that expressly stipulates that you have engaged in general solicitation, then, unlike what would be typical in most Rule 506(b) offerings, you will not have other private offering exemptions to fall back on, should your Rule 506 exemption somehow fail. Claiming exemption under 506(c) is like walking a highwire without a net.
3. Anxiety about the meaning of “general solicitation” dates back to the rollout of Rule 506(c) two years ago. See this piece I wrote for the Wall Street Journal: http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2013/09/27/weekend-read-the-trojan-horse-of-accredited-investor-verification/.
4. Is my metaphor over the top, or is it really dangerous and unhealthy for a startup to conduct a Rule 506(c) offering? This is a question I would like to put back to all of you!
5. Technically speaking, it does not appear as though the new guidance is saying that a given angel’s network extends the reach of the issuer’s pre-existing, substantive relationships, at least not in the same way that a broker-dealer’s relationships might. See Question 256.29. Rather, the long-standing practice of introductions via angel networks appears to be a similar but independent method of “neutralizing” general solicitation.