Why do you have to be an accredited investor?
gojomo: It's leftover government paternalism from the scams and bubbles of previous eras.Viewed charitably, it protects less-sophisticated citizens from losing money they can't afford to lose in areas where the risks and legal structures are too complicated for them to properly evaluate.Viewed less charitably, it's just one of many traditional arrangements that discriminate against the non-wealthy, somewhat sustained (even if below the level of conscious intent) because they happen to protect the interests of those already wealthy.Sound paranoid? Observe that there's no law or paperwork which blocks a poor person from gambling away all their money -- plus all the money credit cards will loan them! -- on rigged games of chance, including some run by the government itself (state lotteries).But can that same person invest a few thousand to ten thousand in a private company? No, or not without costly paperwork which makes many ventures uninterested in taking such money. And that answer applies even if it's a small proportion of the investor's total savings, or in an area where they have first-hand expertise.