What does it feel like when traditional notions of worker-ownership come face to face with venture capital and a deal gets hammered out? As you might expect, pretty exciting and hopeful. One of our clients came to us a little more than a year ago as a group of workers and friends who left …
Non-extractive finance
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.
Vlog: Mission Outcomes Convertible Series Preferred Term Sheet
I have been working for over a year on a template impact oriented term sheet with the above captioned mouthful of a name. Here is a loom explainer on what it’s all about. Email us if you’d like to learn more, or want to consider deploying it. Episode 1 Episode 2
Thoughts from a new economies’ attorney: patterns that create different kinds of (business) ownership – cooperative capital
In my last post, I talked about how capital looks like in a traditional business. As a recap, traditionally, capital is invested in the business with a goal of extracting profits and controlling how the business is done – the more money an investor (owner or shareholder) puts in the business, (i) the more return …
Thoughts from a new economies’ attorney: patterns that create different kinds of (business) ownership – traditional capital investment
If you are reading this post, chances are you are an innovator, you are looking for guidance on alternative business forms, you run or are part of a mission-driven organization, you are considering adopting democratic governance models in your business or nonprofit, or some combination of those. I have to alert you that this is …
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 …
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 …
V-BLOG: BEYOND DEBT/EQUITY: HOW CAN WE HELP THE SOLIDARITY ECONOMY GROW?
Click here to view Jason Wiener’s recent webinar and learn more about alternative investment vehicles such as convertible notes, revenue-based financing, and guarantees.
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. …
New Models for #platformcoop Design, Part 4: Option B – The TechCo and Co-op Marriage
Click here to read the previous post in the series, Part 3: Option A – The Integrated Tech/Data Cooperative In light of the design and practical challenges that face certain kinds of #platformcoops, we have re-incarnated a traditional private equity strategy that houses different operational functions within separate legal structures. I call this the “TechCo …
