Indiegogo Goes Where Few Companies Dare: Into Initial Coin Offerings<br />Small investors will be allowed to invest about $10,000 in most projects,<br />and companies will be able to raise no more than $1 million from these investors, because of restrictions put in place by the 2012 JOBS Act.<br />The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, has said several times — most recently on Monday —<br />that many coins should be categorized as securities and be registered with the authorities, which almost no projects have done.<br />Sohrob Farudi, the chief executive of the Fan-Controlled Football League, said he was willing to<br />accept the restrictions involved in working with Indiegogo to stay on the right side of the law.<br />The first project to use the service, a start-up known as the Fan-Controlled Football League, will begin raising $5 million on Indiegogo this week.<br />Early next year, it expects to do a full initial coin offering, and will likely look to raise around $30 million, Mr. Farudi said.<br />The start-up aims to use the money to create a league of football teams<br />that will be guided by people who buy the league’s coins (a crazy-sounding idea that has already been tested).<br />An online art gallery known as Maecenas, which failed to raise 400,000 pounds (currently about<br />$533,000) through crowdfunding this year, raised $15 million a few months later through an I.<br />Indiegogo started a new service on Tuesday to vet coin offerings, also known as I. C.O.s, and then help sell them to small and large investors.
