Allowing everyday Americans to invest in today’s high-growth startups—picture grandma and grandpa putting a portion of their retirement savings into the next pre-IPO Facebook —has long been the dream of advocates of so-called equity crowdfunding. This dream was supposed to be enabled by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which became law in April 2012. Three years later, after substantially more wrangling than anyone anticipated, Title III of that act is finally codified as rules written by the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to those rules, as of May 16, the floodgates of equity crowdfunding will be officially open.
