The Washington Department of Financial Institutions promulgated its final rules today (October 2, 2014) for ESHB 2023, known as the “Washington Jobs Act of 2014″. You can find the final rules and the final crowdfunding application form here. This means that Washington intrastate crowdfunding is here and ready to go as of November 1, 2014, when the rules will be effective.
The law was actually passed last March, but the law required the stated Department of Financial Institutions the responsibility of promulgating rules to implement the Act. The DFI got right on the task, has published both draft and proposed rules and accepted comments on them. Last week Carter testified at the final public rulemaking hearing and followed up with written comments about one troubling rule in particular, which is the requirement to make financial statements, executive compensation, and large shareholder ownership available to the general public after the offering closes. You can read Carter’s written comments here. For some of the things you should consider before doing a Washington crowdfunding, see Carter’s post here.
Don’t miss out on the first event discussing the new crowdfunding rules. The City University of Seattle’s entrepreneurship program is launching this Fall. To honor the launch, CityU is hosting an event on October 13 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. – The New Funding Paradigm: Using the Power of the People. At this event, people will learn from leaders in the industry how entrepreneurs and businesses are leveraging the use of crowdfunding. The CEO of Fundable, the largest business crowdfunding site, is flying in from Ohio just to present at this event. He is being joined by crowdfunding bill sponsor Rep. Cyrus Habib, State of Washington Dept. of Financial Institutions’ Chief of Regulations and an entrepreneur with successful crowdfunding experience. http://www.cityu.edu/events/enterpreneurship/ The event is sponsored by StartUp Seattle from the City of Seattle Office of Economic Development Department, Davis, Wright and Tremaine, LLP and Geekwire.