<story><title>Republic – Now everyone can invest in startups</title><url>https://republic.co/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Animats</author><text>Interesting. These appear to be JOBS act short-form mini-IPOs.[1] That&amp;#x27;s something new, which just became possible this year and hasn&amp;#x27;t been used much.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s Farm from a Box&amp;#x27;s SEC filing.[2] Typical crappy terms - no voting rights, no anti-dilution, no transferability for one year, insiders have control.&lt;p&gt;Nobody associated with the project has a farming background. They have two employees. One is a liberal arts majors from UC Berkeley and one has an unspecified degree from UCLA.  They do not have a working prototype farm according to the SEC filing.&lt;p&gt;The filing for Youngry [2] is more interesting.  They want to start a glossy web site for young entrepreneurs.  They claim lots of good contacts. (Miss Las Vegas?) They&amp;#x27;re only asking for $50K, which isn&amp;#x27;t enough. Two-person business.&lt;p&gt;Republic takes a 5% cut; that&amp;#x27;s how they make their money.&lt;p&gt;This is a reasonable concept, but the current set of deals isn&amp;#x27;t very impressive.  These are people looking for Series A funding and would probably be rejected by YC.  The idea behind the JOBS act short-form IPO was supposed to be that when your startup got too big for angel&amp;#x2F;friends and family&amp;#x2F;Kickstarter funding, there was a next level and an exit strategy for the original funders.  It wasn&amp;#x27;t intended for startups this early.&lt;p&gt;You can look up these companies on the SEC&amp;#x27;s EDGAR system.  If you scroll down all the way to the end of Republic&amp;#x27;s pages, there&amp;#x27;s a link.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;media2.mofo.com&amp;#x2F;documents&amp;#x2F;120416-pli-quick-guide-jobs-act.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;media2.mofo.com&amp;#x2F;documents&amp;#x2F;120416-pli-quick-guide-job...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;Archives&amp;#x2F;edgar&amp;#x2F;data&amp;#x2F;1679373&amp;#x2F;000167937316000001&amp;#x2F;FFABFormC.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;Archives&amp;#x2F;edgar&amp;#x2F;data&amp;#x2F;1679373&amp;#x2F;000167937316...&lt;/a&gt;
[3] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;Archives&amp;#x2F;edgar&amp;#x2F;data&amp;#x2F;1679372&amp;#x2F;000167937216000002&amp;#x2F;YoungryFormC.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sec.gov&amp;#x2F;Archives&amp;#x2F;edgar&amp;#x2F;data&amp;#x2F;1679372&amp;#x2F;000167937216...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Republic – Now everyone can invest in startups</title><url>https://republic.co/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>twblalock</author><text>You don&amp;#x27;t get shares if you invest -- you get something called a &amp;quot;crowd safe&amp;quot;: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;republic.co&amp;#x2F;learn&amp;#x2F;investors&amp;#x2F;crowdsafe&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;republic.co&amp;#x2F;learn&amp;#x2F;investors&amp;#x2F;crowdsafe&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;More info here: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.crowdfundinsider.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;87034-republic-adds-creates-crowd-safe-investing-vehicle-for-reg-cf-issuers&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.crowdfundinsider.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;87034-republic-adds-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a bit leery of these. According to the article, &amp;quot;unless specifically negotiated, SAFE holders do not have any voting or information rights.&amp;quot; I also suspect that the shareholders get taken care of before crowd safe holders in legal or bankruptcy proceedings. The rights of crowd safe holders haven&amp;#x27;t been tested in court.&lt;p&gt;I think the lack of rights and additional risk inherent in crowd safes would need to be compensated for by some kind of discount relative to what investors pay for shares. Otherwise, the risk-adjusted return is lower.&lt;p&gt;I would also be skeptical of the potential of a startup that can&amp;#x27;t convince normal VCs to fund them. If people who do this for a living don&amp;#x27;t think a startup is worth investing in, why should I?</text></comment>