Bijan Sabet

Sen Dodd’s bill vs startups

I was running around yesterday bouncing from meeting to meeting but I did see this tweet by Josh Kopelman.

I hit “favorite” on Tweetie which is my way of bookmarking the tweet to read later.

So this morning I clicked through and read the entire article on the Huffington Post.

Senator Dodd is proposing a bill that introduces a review period on angel investments and reduces the number of angel investors.

That section would require, for the first time, companies seeking angel investment to make a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which would have 120 days to review it. This would both raise the cost of seeking angels and delay the ability of companies to benefit from their funding.

The negative impact of the SEC filing requirement would be aggravated by the proposed doubling of the net worth or income thresholds required for investors to be “accredited.”

I’m not sure why Senator Dodd feels compelled to go after startups and angel investors but this is simply nuts. Angel investors play a critical role in the startup ecosystem.

I encourage you to contact your elected officials and let them know how you feel. That’s what I’m going to do.