Invest Local, LLC Becomes the First Equity Crowdfunding Platform in Colorado

By now, most people are probably familiar with popular crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. However, far fewer people are aware of the newer concept of equity crowdfunding. That is likely to change. Instead of just preordering a product or buying a "perk," people can now actually invest in promising new companies. Invest Local, LLC has become the first site to begin operating under Colorado's Crowdfunding Act

“Access to capital remains a key challenge to starting and growing businesses, social enterprises and community projects in Colorado,” says Karl Dakin, president of Invest Local, LLC. You can read their full press release below. 

Signed into law earlier this year by Governor John Hickenlooper, crowdfunding efforts through which investors can acquire debt or equity interests in a prospective company are now lawful in the State of Colorado. Although businesses may issue debt or equity under the new Act, this method of capital formation is still commonly referred to as "equity crowdfunding."

Just as other sharing economy or peer-to-peer technologies have disrupted entire industries (think Uber and AirBnB), crowdfunding has the power to disrupt traditional financing by making the process available to far more people. Funding for new companies or existing companies looking to expand could increase dramatically. The social aspects of crowdfunding also offer companies the opportunity to spread the word about their products and services. A high quality video has been shown to be the most effective way to communicate and share such a brand message.

The following companies have filed Form CF-3 to act as an on-line intermediary under the Colorado Crowdfunding Act:


View the Press Release from Invest Local, LLC here:

 

Karl Dakin

President

Invest Local LLC

Main: 720-296-0372

[email protected]

http://www.InvestLocalColorado.com

Invest Local LLC Opens First Investment Crowdfunding Platform in Colorado

Non-accredited investment crowdfunding arrives in Colorado as Invest Local LLC offers crowdfunding platform services.  

DENVER, CO—December 1, 2015—Access to capital remains a key challenge to starting and growing businesses, social enterprises and community projects in Colorado. Without capital there is less innovation, fewer new products and services and fewer jobs – all important factors in strong, sustained economic growth. 

A new company, Invest Local LLC, is the first to offer crowdfunding platform services in Colorado that are targeted to investors that make up the 97% of the population who are non-accredited investors.    

The company is acting as a value added reseller of services from FundPaas (http://www.fundpaas.com) - a California business.  “We searched out a crowdfunding platform that is adaptable to different types of crowdfunding, compliant with federal and state laws and regulations and which can keep the costs of crowdfunding affordable to the small business.  FundPaas met all of these criteria.  We look forward to working together with FundPaas in supporting thousands of Colorado businesses, social enterprises and community projects in raising the money they need,” stated Karl Dakin, President of Invest Local LLC.

Under the new Colorado Crowdfunding Act, organizations raising money are required to use a registered intermediary such as Invest Local LLC to manage the large number of investors who invest in small dollar amounts. 

Investment crowdfunding is a revolution within the capital industry as new laws and regulations at the federal and state level have removed restrictions on how money can be raised and on who can invest.  Investment crowdfunding fills the large gap in the capital industry for those organizations that cannot qualify for bank financing or meet the high performance requirements of angel investors.  These organizations are no longer limited to financial institutions and wealthy individuals, but can seek money from friends, family, associates, customers, employees and other members of their community.

“The potential of investment crowdfunding in providing capital needed by Colorado small businesses is tremendous.  There are an estimated 4.3 million non-accredited individuals and over 700,000 businesses that may now invest through crowdfunding.  If each of these individuals and businesses were to invest only $1, they could fund five businesses up to the $1 million limit (unaudited financials) under the Colorado Crowdfunding Act.  That’s $5 million new dollars invested in Colorado.  If each of these same investors invest $100 each year - $1 each in 100 different Colorado businesses, that’s half a billion new dollars invested in Colorado – each year.  The positive impact upon Colorado’s economy is immeasurable”, said Karl Dakin.

Invest Local LLC will soon begin listing crowdfunding opportunities on its website - http://www.investlocalcolorado.com.  Invest Local LLC will also begin supporting Colorado businesses who are directly raising capital through Limited Registration offerings.  Securities laws prohibit Invest Local from promoting individual crowdfunding campaigns, however Invest Local LLC will be active in general efforts to encourage citizens of Colorado to ‘Invest in Colorado’.  Organizations interested in raising capital through investment crowdfunding may complete a free survey on the website.

Initially, the company will support intrastate crowdfunding campaigns under Colorado’s Limited Offering statute and the new Colorado Crowdfunding Act.  It will soon support federal 506c and Reg A+ crowdfunding campaigns.  And, it expects to support the JOBS Act, also called Series III, crowdfunding campaigns when they are authorized in 2016.  The platform can also support large scale product crowdfunding campaigns and charitable fundraisers.

Invest Local LLC will act as a reseller of educational programs developed by the Colorado Capital Congress PBC (http://www.coloradocapitalcongress.com), a social enterprise working to improve the capital ecosystem in Colorado.  Programs include how to run a crowdfunding campaign and how to invest through crowdfunding.  The next program on raising capital – Customer Crowdfunding – will be presented on December 10th at Colorado Lending Source.  The next program on investing through crowdfunding – Main Street Investing – will be presented on December 17th.  A limited number of free passes to each workshop are available to community leaders.

Invest Local LLC is developing programs to help economic development agencies, community organizations and professional associations in promoting investment in Colorado businesses.  These programs will focus on the advantages of investing in ‘Main Street’ Colorado over Wall Street.

ULA, Blue Origin, and SpaceX Race to a Fully Reusable Rocket

Jeff Bezos' private spaceflight company, Blue Origin, has been working more-or-less in "stealth mode" over the years. As such, they've made a lot fewer attention-grabbing headlines than both Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) - the joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed. However, this week stands in contrast as Blue Origin succeeded in vertically landing a rocket that returned from space.

Elon Musk was quick to congratulate Jeff and the Blue Origin team on their vertical take off and landing (VTOL), however, he was also quick to point out the massive difference of Blue Origin's suborbital landing maneuver and his own attempts at landing a rocket from an orbital launch.

 

Imagine building (and paying for) a brand new Boeing or Airbus jumbo jet for every commercial flight from LAX to JFK. Such a radically high cost would make flying economically impossible for more than 99% of humanity. This is essentially what humans have been doing with spaceflight up until this point. Every launch mission needed to have its own brand-new rocket. 

Now the paradigm is beginning to shift as the ambitions of ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin all are paving the way forward for reusable rockets. This shift will completely change the economics of space flight. Seeing multiple parties competing and working together on this front could dramatically accelerate reduction in the price of getting cargo - and people - up into space.

Watch the video released by Blue Origin and imagine the possibilities of this new frontier:

While Musk may be technically correct, this is still an exciting development. More talented teams working on this can only increase the competition and encourage further technological advancement. 

As news sites are quick to call this a decisive win for Bezos, this must be another blow to Musk and the entire SpaceX crew as landing a rocket was a major public goals of theirs. A goal that they've come close to - and failed. Hopefully they will take this defeat in good spirits and use it as motivation. To their credit, they've gotten really close on their more difficult orbital launch and landing attempts:

The United Launch Alliance is taking a different approach. They're actually partnering with Blue Origin on the next generation Vulcan rocket. Instead of sourcing its RD-180 rocket engines from Russia, the ULA will use the new American-made BE-4 engines designed by Blue Origin. It too is now seeking to reduce launch costs by recovering the booster body, though their method involves slowing its descent and recovering it midair. 

"In this approach, when the booster is done and you are finished with the rocket engines, we will cut them off. We will return them to the Earth using an advanced, inflatable, hypersonic heat shield. And then, with a very low, simplified logistics footprint, we'll recover them in midair and return them to the factory to quickly recertify them, and then plop them under the next booster to fly. This will take up to 90 percent of the propulsion cost out of the booster," said ULA CEO Tory Bruno

The Country Starts Focusing on Cybersecurity

Have you noticed the new chip-enabled credit cards sent out recently?  After being used in other countries for years, the security-focused technology known as EMV has finally become the accepted standard by many major banks and retailers in the United States. Cybersecurity has been increasing in importance for a long while, so while it's encouraging to see the nation finally focusing on collaborating and implementing best practices, much more still needs to be done.

Not all banks and retailers are working with this new security standard yet, though most of them have made the switch because banks and retailers that don't assume increased financial liability after the October 1, 2015 deadline. This date marks a "liability shift" so that any retailers that choose to accept payments made via a chip card’s old-school magnetic strip can continue doing so, however they’ll accept liability for any fraudulent purchases. Similarly, any credit card issuers that don’t issue EMV credit cards will be responsible for any fraudulent purchases. This serves as a clever way to internalize previously unaccounted-for risk.

Internalizing the costs of risk one way or another is the best route to align incentives and advance the shared interests of government agencies, businesses, and individuals. While this may sound like bad news for would-be identity thieves and hackers, such magnetic strip based "carding" has been around for decades. More advanced hackers are always using new techniques, so while this is a victory of sorts, there is plenty more room for America to improve defenses on the technological front. 

On the local level today, the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry (CACI) is bringing in experts to discuss the issue with local businesses. The focus is on explaining their role in addressing cybersecurity. They'll also go into the dynamic and ever-evolving security environment. The main point is to raise awareness and to convince businesses of why they should care more about cybersecurity.  

On the national level this week, Beth Cobert, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), will be facing a Senate nomination hearing in order to fully approve her for the position.  She's likely to face many questions about the major breach her department faced before she was tapped to take over. She's also likely to face questioning about her handling of the situation after the fact. The implications of such a hack poses major national security risks when unfriendly countries and other bad actors have a database of dossiers on 21.5 million US Government employees including personal identity information such as social security numbers and fingerprints, as well as their weaknesses to potential blackmail such as sexual orientation and extra-marital relationships.

Also on the national level, Wall Street banks are being encouraged by the executive branch to increase their defense against cyber-attacks. The Treasury Department's Sarah Raskin is telling bankers they need to update systems and implement multi-step identity checks. Deputy Secretary Raskin is calling the U.S. finance industry a “treasure trove” for high-tech criminals.

“Virtually every process you engage in needs to be reviewed and updated, enterprise-wide, from a cyber-resiliency perspective,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin said in remarks prepared for a banking conference on Tuesday. Companies should require multi-step identity checks for anyone accessing their networks or data, she said.

Raskin’s speech at the annual meeting of the Clearing House, a financial-industry trade group, comes a week after U.S. prosecutors detailed a vast, multi-year criminal enterprise focusing on hacks of at least nine big financial and publishing companies. Suspects were tied to previously reported hacks of News Corp.’s Dow Jones & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co., E*Trade Financial Corp., and Scottrade Financial Services Inc.

Cybersecurity: Capitalism and Zero Days

ze·ro-day

adjective COMPUTING

  1. deriving from or relating to a previously unknown vulnerability to attack in some software.

    "It is known as a 'zero-day' because once a flaw becomes known, the programmer or developer has zero days to fix it."

Zero-days are the key raw materials that make up cyberweapons. In other words, zero-days are the kind of serious security flaw that people don't know about, which is why they remain so open to exploitation and valuable to those who mean to do harm. Cybersecurity, while a challenging topic, is an important issue because of how such vulnerabilities can impact individuals, businesses, and government agencies. Governmental action can both help or make things worse, though it's becoming clear that collaboration is growing increasingly necessary. 

"Cybersecurity threats from nation states and other well-funded, highly motivated actors present risks that neither the public nor the private sector can unilaterally address. "
-Executive Summary, Business Roundtable's report on More Intelligent, More Effective Cybersecurity Protection 

America should be encouraging white-hat hackers to keep working for good. We should be sharing information between government and businesses, and avoid using taxpayer funds for ineffective or even counter-productive initiatives, like keeping backdoors open in order to spy on American citizens.

In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."  The Chicago-school economist Milton Friedman subsequently used this quote in the beginning of his book Capitalism and Freedom as a way to analyze and re-evaluate the role of the state. Is America the collection of its free citizenry, along with their shared ideals and traditions? Or is it, like M. Friedman warned of the implications of Kennedy's statement, an increasingly paternalistic super-organism that compels its subjects to serve the state and its agenda? 

These questions are still relevant in the modern condition of fiscal responsibility (think of budget deficits and Keynes-vs.-Hayek arguments), though they are also relevant to the modern state of technology and cybersecurity. Is America supporting electronic freedom, respecting individuals' privacy, and providing citizens reasonable protection from foreign threats?

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” 
― Milton Friedman

The news of America's intrusive monitoring policies has incurred high costs resulting from the global loss of trust in American tech companies. The ITIF originally estimated PRISM to cost the U.S. economy up to $35 billion in lost cloud computing business around the world. Since that initial estimate, it now looks like loss of trust extended beyond just cloud computing and into the American tech sector more generally and will cost the U.S. economy even more. That's in addition to the tax money spent on building such programs.

Cisco, a member of the national Business Roundtable, saw its sales interrupted in Brazil, China, and Russia because of reports that the NSA had secretly inserted backdoor surveillance tools into its routers, servers and networking equipment. During a quarterly earnings call, Cisco CEO John Chambers even cited the NSA as the factor behind steep sales decreases, saying “I do think (the NSA revelation) is a factor in China.” These reports damaged the company’s international reputation and prompted it to take extra precautions to thwart surreptitious actions by the NSA. The additional costs this involved were passed along to its customers and the lessened profits were passed on to the shareholders.

Milton Friedman would argue for a smaller, more constrained government in the realm of cyberspace on one hand. A government that represents the interests of its citizenry. As he wrote in Capitalism and Freedom, "First, the scope of government must be limited. Its major function must be to protect our freedom both from the enemies outside our gates and from our fellow-citizens: to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, to foster competitive markets."

On the other hand, it should be a capable public-private system in order to protect Americans. Rather than secretly encouraging, planting and using zero-days, the U.S. government should help promote open markets where software bugs and security threats can be purchased by manufacturers in order to make timely security patches. Paying a security researcher $10,000 for a security-related bug could save taxpayers much, much more than a purely reactionary scenario - such as the data breach of the Office of Personnel Management. People are currently selling security leaks - to legitimate governments or to nefarious actors. We should work to remove the stigma of "hackers" and work to share information between upstanding citizens, businesses, and government agencies.

"However, instead of focusing on information sharing and collaborative risk management, government proposals misdirect scarce public and private-sector resources to compliance-based, check-the-box models. These proposals place the cart before the horse by calling for government creation of cybersecurity practices and standards before much-needed information sharing legislation is passed and implemented. " 
-Executive Summary, Business Roundtable's report on More Intelligent, More Effective Cybersecurity Protection 

We should encourage communication between government organizations and corporations in order to warn of dangers and to help protect each other. Incentivizing hackers to report on bugs, and then actually fixing those bugs makes us all safer. While the FBI or the NSA may want that backdoor access into your iPhone, so do ill-intentioned actors from around the world. Encryption and security updates are the right choice.

It's a challenging topic, so if you have any questions or would like to express differences of opinion or additional facts of which the author may not have been aware at the time of writing, please comment below. 

If you're interested in seeing and learning more about zero-days, VPRO Backlight, a Dutch documentary group, recently produced this well researched and informative piece entitled "Zero days - Security Leaks for Sale." It's a high-quality, modern introduction:

http://backlight.vpro.nl/ There is new gold to be found on the internet, and possibly in your own computer. Secret backdoors, that do not have a digital lock yet, are being traded at astronomical amounts. In the cyber world trade, where there are no rules, you are in luck with "white-hat" hackers, who guard your online security.

CU-Boulder instrument selected for NASA mission to Europa

Contact:
Sascha Kempf, 303-735-4476
[email protected]
Jim Scott, CU-Boulder media relations, 303-492-3114
[email protected]

May 26, 2015

A University of Colorado Boulder instrument has been selected to fly on a NASA mission to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, which is believed to harbor a subsurface ocean that may provide conditions suitable for life.

The CU-Boulder instrument, known as the SUrface Dust Mass Analyzer (SUDA), will be used to measure the composition of solid particles released from Europa’s surface due to meteoroid bombardment. The instrument also will be able to measure the properties of small, solid particles believed to be spewing from a hidden ocean within the moon, said physics Assistant Professor Sascha Kempf, principal investigator on the project.

 “We are really, really excited,” said Kempf, a research associate at CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics where the instrument will be built. “This instrument will be used to support the overarching goal of the Europa mission, which is to understand the prerequisites of life in the solar system.”

There is evidence from both NASA’s Galileo mission to Jupiter and from Hubble Space Telescope images that plumes of water and ice particles are shooting out from Europa’s surface, according to NASA officials.

SUDA was one of nine instruments selected today by NASA for the mission to Europa from 33 proposals from around the world. Other CU-Boulder co-investigators on the instrument – which has been under development for about 10 years – include physics Professor Mihaly Horanyi and aerospace engineering sciences department Assistant Professor Zoltan Sternovsky. Sternovsky also is affiliated with LASP.

Europa is one of four large Jovian moons and is about the size of Earth’s moon. Scientists believe there is a frozen crust about 40 miles (70 kilometers) thick separating the ocean from the surface, said Kempf. The ocean, which may be heated by Europa’s interior, could harbor more than twice as much water as Earth’s oceans, according to NASA officials.

NASA’s fiscal year 2016 budget request includes $30 million to formulate a mission to Europa. The solar-powered spacecraft would be placed in a long, looping orbit around the gas giant Jupiter – the largest planet in the solar system – performing repeated flybys of Europa as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers) over a three-year period.

“There appears to be an exchange of material occurring between Europa’s surface and its subsurface ocean,” said Kempf. “We are building a very powerful instrument that will provide us with information about the moon’s interior structure and the repository of material in the water under the ice crust.”

Students play a major role in all research activities at LASP, said Kempf. “We already have both undergraduates and graduate students involved in this project, and through the course of the mission they will be working on everything from software development and instrument testing to data acquisition and analysis.”

In March, a CU-Boulder-led study involving Kempf used data from NASA’s Cassini mission indicating microscopic grains of rock detected near Saturn may be due to hydrothermal activity taking place within its moon, Enceladus.

About the size of a lunchbox, the LASP instrument for Europa will weigh about 24 pounds, much of it for special high-tech shielding to protect it from the harsh radiation environment of Jupiter. LASP also has a dust instrument on NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto called the Student Dust Counter built entirely by students. Launched in 2006, New Horizons will make its closest flyby of the dwarf planet on July 14.

Other U.S partners on the SUDA project include Arizona State University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. In addition, there are several European partners including the University of Stuttgart in Germany, the University of Oulu in Finland and the National Center for Scientific Research in France.