3c hapter - Index of

142 Locavesting
freely, and normal people who can only invest in what the big
fi nancial companies offer and promote to them—and anything
small or local will never appear on the menu.”
The petition—fi led in July 2010 and offi cially dubbed File No.
4-605—makes the case that such an exemption would promote
capital formation with minimal investor risk. There’s been a relative
groundswell of support for the proposal on the SEC’s site—
and Whoopi Goldberg has even thrown her support behind the
effort. But not all are pleased.
Lawton, for one, believes a $100 cap is too restrictive. “You
can’t create the next Google in increments of $100,” he says.
Besides, an exemption like that, if granted, could dash hopes for
any further action for a decade or so, since the SEC would not
be likely to revisit the issue, so Lawson is working on his own proposal.
“I want crowdfunding to apply to everything,” from capitalintensive
life sciences and clean- tech ventures to startups with
smaller capital needs, says Lawton. “What we need is something
different from these little exemptions. Let’s prove it out. Let’s not
put limits on it.”
In the meantime, the Dodd- Frank fi nancial reform bill passed
by Congress in 2010 actually raised the hurdles for accredited
investors, by excluding from the calculation of net worth the
value of one’s primary residence. “That’s really, really stupid,” says
Trampoline’s Charles Armstrong. “That’s going to hurt innovation
in the U.S. and hurt the enterprise ecosystem.”
Shave Ice and Crack Seed
Back in California, Jessica Jackley, the cofounder of Kiva, is working
on her next venture, a P2P funding platform called ProFounder,
which she started with fellow Stanford University MBA graduate
Dana Mauriello. From their vantage point in Silicon Valley, the two
women noticed a striking gulf between high- tech startups, which
had ready access to venture capital, and entrepreneurs in less
glamorous fi elds who struggled to raise funds. They also saw that
for the latter group, the entrepreneurs’ community—the friends,
family, customers, neighbors, and others that revolve around a