The Corporations
Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding) Bill 2015 will introduce
a new regulatory framework to facilitate crowd-sourced equity
funding in Australia.
Crowd-sourced funding ('CSF') is an emerging method of
funding, allowing businesses to obtain funding from a large number
of individual investors through an online platform.
This Bill establishes a new legislative framework for
crowd-sourced funding with reduced disclosure, governance and
reporting obligations to reduce costs. It is intended to make it
easier for small businesses to obtain funding from the public while
also ensuring that investors are protected.
The CSF framework will allow small, public, unlisted companies
to fundraise up to $5 million per year. It outlines the eligibility
requirements of a company seeking to make a CSF offer, the process
of making a CSF offer, the obligations of CSF intermediaries and
the prohibitions, liabilities and investor protections applying to
CSF offers, which
