Home » Alternative Finance » #Impinv

#Impinv

Patagonia “Exits to Climate”: A Win for Capitalism, But a Mixed Bag for Stakeholder Governance

I, like most, was delighted to read the news that Patagonia’s shareholders decided to give away ownership of the company to benefit the climate and not private equity, a strategic buyer, or public capital markets. We’ve written extensively on mechanisms for mission protection in corporate entities.   It appears that the Chouinard family, which owned …

Read more

Co-ops and Capital

A few weeks ago, I presented to the Colorado Employee Ownership Commission about co-ops and capital formation strategies and options. Here is the presentation. If you’d like to learn more about the subject, or design your own cooperative’s capital strategy, you can book a bespoke consulting session with me, HERE.

Read more

Capital Basics: Five Categories of Financing

The Jason Wiener, p.c. blog has a significant and growing section on raising capital for a business. This post will go back to the basics and briefly describe the five categories of financing: debt, equity, convertible debt, grants, and rewards-based fundraising. Most types of fundraising fall within one or more of these areas. Debt: Debt …

Read more

SEC Adopts Temporary Rules to Loosen Crowdfunding Regulation in Light of COVID-19

 In recognition of the particular effect of COVID-19 on small businesses, the SEC issued temporary rules earlier this month to allow small businesses greater access to interstate crowdfunding. The federal requirements for crowdfunding, called Regulation Crowdfunding or Regulation CF, had slow approval processes and arduous requirements which made it difficult for small businesses to access …

Read more

New Models for #platformcoop Design, Part 5: Reciprocal Ownership

In this series so far, we have analyzed the potential for a sistered for-profit entity and cooperative entity to separately optimize for financing and member-orientation.  Since publishing this series, I’ve received some good feedback from readers.  Some have asked about additional terms and benefits that could be designed into the TechCo – Cooperative “pre-nuptial” agreement. …

Read more

New Models for #platformcoop Design Part 2

Click here to read the first post in the series, The Marriage of TechCo and Co-op. If traditional tech platforms are generally designed to maximize liquidity value, and cooperatives are generally designed to maximize use value, how can the #platformcoop movement successfully blend both models to meet the needs of all stakeholders involved? We think one …

Read more

New Models for #platformcoop Design: The Marriage of TechCo and Co-op

Over the years, we have advised our clients on dozens of #platformcoop designs, formations, and fundraising campaigns. While the cooperative structure has been used for decades as a legal vessel for both collective asset ownership (e.g. affordable and market-rate housing, commercial real estate, electric generation and distribution, manufacturing, processing, etc.) and for collective distribution access …

Read more