{"id":1260,"date":"2013-06-20T06:23:01","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T10:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spiegelsohmer.com\/2013\/06\/20\/ontario-approves-an-equityesque-crowdfunding-portal\/"},"modified":"2016-11-14T16:01:53","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T21:01:53","slug":"ontario-approves-an-equityesque-crowdfunding-portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiegelryan.com\/en\/2013\/06\/20\/ontario-approves-an-equityesque-crowdfunding-portal\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Approves an \u201cEquityesque\u201d Crowdfunding Portal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\" align=\"center\"><i>PART 3 OF A SERIES ON CROWDFUNDING<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">On June 17, 2013, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.osc.gov.on.ca\/en\/home.htm\">Ontario Securities Commission<\/a> (the OSC) issued a decision approving the first \u201cequityesque\u201d&nbsp;crowdfunding platform in Canada.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Visit these links for a <a title=\"Crowdfunding \u2013 the Loonie Train gone Viral\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spiegelsohmer.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/14\/crowdfunding-the-loonie-train-gone-viral\/\">synopsis of crowdfunding<\/a> and <a title=\"Equity Crowdfunding?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spiegelsohmer.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/23\/equity-crowdfunding\/\">equity crowdfunding<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">The decision by the OSC allows MaRS VX, a not-for-profit entity and a wholly-owned subsidiary of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marsdd.com\/\">MaRS Discovery District<\/a> to operate an online platform to connect impact issuers and accredited investors. The portal itself will not be part of issuing the securities, rather it simply acts as a \u201cmeeting ground\u201d.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">The OSC defines an \u201cimpact issuer\u201d as a small or medium-sized venture or fund (with less than $25 million in revenues, a social or environmental prioritized mission, earned revenues and proven impact, including for-profit corporations, non-profit corporations, for-profit cooperatives and non-profit cooperatives).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Once an impact issuer satisfies the MaRS VX\u2019s criteria, it will be able to provide information on its proposed offerings and operations to prospective investors through the MaRS VX portal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">While the exception for MaRS VX is exciting and appears to be a significant step in the direction of one day permitting equity crowdfunding, it is important to highlight that the portal is only for accredited investors and is limited to impact issuers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">At this time, there is no equity crowdfunding portal in Canada that brings non-accredited investors and businesses together.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.osc.gov.on.ca\/en\/SecuritiesLaw_ord_20130620_215_mars-vx.htm\">The OSC decision can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><em><a href=\"mailto:sabbey@spiegelsohmer.com\">Seth B. Abbey<\/a>, a corporate lawyer at Spiegel Sohmer with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, private equity financing and tax-driven reorganizations, is available to answer your questions about this and other topics.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PART 3 OF A SERIES ON CROWDFUNDING On June 17, 2013, the Ontario Securities Commission (the OSC) issued a decision approving the first \u201cequityesque\u201d&nbsp;crowdfunding platform in Canada. Visit these links for a synopsis of crowdfunding and equity crowdfunding. The decision by the OSC allows MaRS VX, a not-for-profit entity and a wholly-owned subsidiary of MaRS [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-law"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ontario Approves an \u201cEquityesque\u201d Crowdfunding Portal - Spiegel Ryan<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spiegelsohmer.com\/en\/2013\/06\/20\/ontario-approves-an-equityesque-crowdfunding-portal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ontario Approves an \u201cEquityesque\u201d Crowdfunding Portal - Spiegel Ryan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PART 3 OF A SERIES ON CROWDFUNDING On June 17, 2013, the Ontario Securities Commission (the OSC) issued a decision approving the first \u201cequityesque\u201d&nbsp;crowdfunding platform in Canada. 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