The Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation published its annual report to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs of the U.S. Senate and the Committee on Financial Services of the US House of Representatives as required by the Exchange Act.  2019 was the first year of operations for the Office and, as indicated by the Report, many of the activities during the year were focused on outreach and investor education.  The Report provides a number of useful statistics, including statistics on the amounts raised from July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019 from data collected by the SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, and how the offering methodology used varies by geography.

Source: Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation

Source: Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation

The Report also provides interesting data regarding the pool of accredited investors—13% of US households currently qualify as accredited investors—and geographic dispersion of investors based on household income and net worth.  The report also addresses the late-stage market, as well as the issues facing smaller reporting companies.

The Report concludes by setting forth the Office’s recommendations relating to the SEC’s Concept Release, the definition of accredited investor, retail access to pooled investment vehicles, an exemption for finders, potential updates to the Regulation CF framework and continued scaling of the disclosure obligations for smaller reporting companies.

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