Investment Crowdfunding Platform Launches in North Carolina

By Mark Easley

Localstake NC enables startups and existing businesses to conduct a cost effective and professional debt or equity securities offering and get funding from new sources: their community, customers, partners, and supporters.

Mark Easley

Investment crowdfunding has been growing significantly around the nation, with billions of dollars raised across many different platforms. Now it's our turn North Carolina! It's time to start investment crowdfunding our most promising North Carolina startups and existing businesses to help grow the economy, create jobs, and enable new products and services in communities all over our state.

Localstake NC is the first investment crowdfunding platform exclusively serving North Carolina. Startups and existing businesses ranging from technology startups to retail shops and restaurants can use the platform to raise money to get a company started or to help it grow.

Localstake NC will be hosting private Reg D 506(b) accredited investor offerings, 506(c) accredited investor offerings that can advertise and do general solicitation, and also public investment crowdfunding offerings using the North Carolina PACES Act exemption or Federal JOBS Act Regulation Crowdfunding or Reg A+ exemptions for retail investors and accredited investors. Startups and existing businesses can have offerings of several types including equity, SAFEs, convertible notes, revenue share loans, and conventional loans.

The new NC PACES Act investment crowdfunding law provides a great new innovative option for raising money from all North Carolina residents.

What are the new securities law exemptions like the NC PACES Act and Regulation Crowdfunding?

Start-up companies and existing businesses play a critical role in creating new jobs and growing the economy. The North Carolina Providing Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs and Small business (NC PACES) Act crowdfunding legislation enables a safe, fair, and easy way to finance startups and existing businesses in North Carolina called investment crowdfunding.

Regulation Crowdfunding is a part of the federal JOBS Act securities law exemption. It is more complicated and expensive to implement, but enables investment crowdfunding at the national level. Offerings using both types of exemptions can be hosted on Localstake NC.

And for the first time, all North Carolina residents can invest in startups and small businesses that use the NC PACES Act or Regulation Crowdfunding to raise money. North Carolina residents can now allocate a portion of their investment funds in an organized and transparent way by opening an investment account on Localstake NC, which is a registered Broker/Dealer in North Carolina. This enables investors to connect with local businesses that are raising money, access organized company profiles and financial information, and build and manage a diversified portfolio of local investments.

North Carolina residents can help fund businesses in their own community while potentially receiving a good return on their investment from interest on revenue share loans and other types of loans. They can also invest in equity offerings from high growth startups that were previously only available to wealthy angel investors, venture capitalists, and private equity firms. These types of investments can now be open to everyone. 

How do businesses get funded on Localstake NC?

The investment crowdfunding mission of a startup or small business is to create a great company profile and offering on Localstake NC that explains:

• The company vision
• The problem to be solved
• The product or service solution they have for that problem
• Identification of the target market and how to reach it
• A business plan and model that works
• An analysis of the competition and how to win
• A reasonable financial projection of the business
• The team that that can make the business a success
• The terms and disclosures about the investment offering

On the company profile webpage on Localstake NC, the business will make the case for the funding they need to get that done, and explain the investment offering they are making.

The next step is to run an investment crowdfunding campaign to raise the needed funding. The goal is to find investors in the community and around North Carolina that share your enthusiasm for your business and will help fund it. Localstake NC also provides the broker/dealer investment accounts and the tools to enable investors to invest, and to manage the required disclosures and reporting to investors by the company.

Businesses can use Localstake NC to raise money using a variety of securities law exemptions including Reg D Rule 506(b) and 506(c), Rule 504, Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF), Reg A+ (Mini IPO), and NC PACES Offerings (NCPO). And the securities offered can be a variety of types including convertible notes, preferred or common equity, SAFEs, revenue share loans, or other types of promissory note debt securities.

About Localstake NC

Localstake NC is an extension of Localstake Marketplace LLC, a registered Broker/Dealer, which provides capital raising advisory services and an online investment platform. Localstake, based in Indianapolis, has helped small businesses raise millions of dollars using investment crowdfunding since 2013. Localstake supports federal and intrastate investment crowdfunding offerings in Indiana, Michigan, and Colorado, and is now bringing that expertise to North Carolina. Localstake Marketplace is a registered Broker/Dealer in North Carolina and other states, which means offerings conducted on the platform are regulated under the purview of FINRA and the SEC. Please visit Localstake NC to learn how it works, how to raise funding, how to invest, how to sign up for a free trial business account or how to sign up for a free investor account.

About CrowdfundNC.com

Localstake NC is partnering with CrowdfundNC.com, an educational and services website that is building the ecosystem needed to support investment crowdfunding in North Carolina. At CrowdfundNC.com you can find the tools and services from the top investment crowdfunding experts in North Carolina to help you put together the right offering, create and market your crowdfunding campaign, and get the funding you need.

Our services partners are North Carolina crowdfunding specialists including crowdfunding advisors, law firms, marketing agencies, sales channel advisors, video creation services, business planning advisors, technology development companies, CPAs, HR service companies and more for the startup and small business community.

The publisher and editor of CrowdfundNC.com is Mark Easley, a leading advocate and expert advisor for investment crowdfunding in North Carolina. Please visit CrowdfundNC.com for more information about CrowdfundNC, getting funded, investing, services, and the NC PACES Act.

For more information:

If you are interested in getting funded you can sign up for a free trial business account on Localstake NC to get started. Investors may sign up for a free investor account to stay informed about the opportunities. Please contact Localstake NC by email support@localstake.com and CrowdfundNC.com by email crowdfundnc@nc.rr.com.