The Texas intrastate crowdfunding rules were adopted in April and the Texas Securities Board will consider comments to the rules through the end of June (even though the official deadline for comments is June 8th). The matter will be considered at the next Board meeting which is expected to occur in August. If there are no substantive changes to the rules resulting from the comments, then the Board may adopt the rules at its August meeting, the rules will be published a couple of weeks later and they will become effective 20 days after publication. If there are substantive changes to the rules resulting from the comments, the entire schedule will be thrown off. So – the earliest we can expect crowdfunding to non-accredited investors in Texas to become effective is September of this year.
None of this affects the current crowdfunding craze where people are only accepting investments from accredited investors. This was made possible by the SEC’s lifting the ban on “general solicitation” in certain cases. The unique aspect of the Texas rules is that crowdfunding to non-accredited investors will be permitted, subject to the rules set out in our May 13, 2014 post.