How can I pitch without a general solicitation?

By Rick Colosimo / March 7, 2014 / Comments Off on How can I pitch without a general solicitation?

The redacted email below was sent to the Cornell NYC/ tri-state community – thousands of people. Conveniently, it’s not automatically a securities law violation any more, but this is definitely how to be sure you’ve fallen under the new general solicitation rules, which require a company to take “reasonable steps” to verify that each investor…

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Is that investor accredited?

By Rick Colosimo / February 19, 2014 / Comments Off on Is that investor accredited?

As part of the crowdfunding regulations, the SEC created heightened standards for determining whether an investor was accredited, requiring issuers (that means the startup company) to take “reasonable steps” to determine whether each investor who is part of a general solicitation offering under 506(c) is in fact accredited. Here’s a short overview of these rules,…

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Does your startup suffer from premature launch syndrome?

By Rick Colosimo / January 14, 2014 / Comments Off on Does your startup suffer from premature launch syndrome?

So here is a message I recently received, unsolicited, from someone I don’t know, through a major Q&A site (URL redacted to protect the guilty): I’m a startup founder starting a company in the legal space. It’s called [abcdef.com], and it connects people with lawyers online. Sorta serves as a law firm to both lawyers…

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Don't accept passive-aggressive drafting

By Rick Colosimo / October 24, 2013 / Comments Off on Don't accept passive-aggressive drafting

I recently came across this language (unaltered) in a contract: The Parties understand and agree that all Confidential Information (i) is to be preserved and protected; (ii) is not to be disclosed or made available, directly or indirectly, to anyone other than Authorized Employees, including, without limitation, third parties or unauthorized employees for purposes unrelated…

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