WASHINGTON D.C. – President Obama signed a bill Thursday designed to encourage investment in start-up businesses – expanding “crowd funding” to even more start-ups and small business.

“I’ve always said that the true engine of job creation in this country is the private sector, not the government,” Obama said during a signing ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. “Our job is to help our companies grow and hire.”

Obama said that’s why he pushed for the bipartisan Jump-start Our Business Start-ups (JOBS) Act that he signed Thursday. Sources said the incredible pace at which the legislation moved through Congress was to thwart Obama?s plan to sign the bill after the Democrat convention as a publicity ploy to show the president could get bipartisan support for important legislation.

The new law, ?The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act,? is a game changer for small businesses and startups, said Ken Kousky, CEO at the Mid Michigan Innovation Center and president of the Blue Water Angels. Kousky said start-up businesses before had to rely on wealthy investors ? called Angel Investors ? to fund their dream projects. Now they can ask regular people in their communities to invest in their new business, their existing businesses and more through crowd funding in which the Internet is used to solicit a large number of smaller investors.

The JOBS Act will allow small businesses to raise up to $1 million annually through approved, online crowdfunding intermediaries without having to deal with any kind of SEC registration or filing. Investors will be able to invest up to $10,000 annually without any kind of SEC requirements. In the microlending community, $10,000 is approximately the average loan size. According to data from the U. S. Census’ Survey of Business Owners in 2007, over 43 percent of women owned businesses were started or acquired with less than $10,000 in capital.

Sara Hanks, a securities attorney and co-founder of CrowdCheck, a company aimed at helping startups, said the crowd-funding element will help make it easier for small companies to access capital but warned it will be up to investors and entrepreneurs “to protect themselves from deals that are too good to be true.”

In addition to the emerging growth company and crowd-funding provisions, the legislation removes SEC regulations preventing small businesses from using advertisements to attract investors and raises from 500 to 2,000 the number of shareholders a company or community bank can have before it must register with the SEC.

The main part of the bill would phase in Securities and Exchange Commission regulations over a five-year period to let smaller companies go public sooner. Firms that have annual gross revenues of less than $1 billion would enjoy this “emerging growth company” status.

The bill combines a number of bipartisan bills that exempt newer companies from SEC reporting rules in order to reduce costs and red tape.

Senate Democrats were unsuccessful in their efforts to add more investor protections but succeeded in attaching one provision that requires websites involved in crowd-funding to register with the SEC. It also demands that companies seeking to raise money this way provide information on its financial status, business plans and shareholder risks.

House Minority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., a frequent critic of the president, helped sponsor the JOBS Act, and attended the White House ceremony. So did Troy-based Billhighway?s CIO, Steve Robert. He was selected for this honor due to his involvement as a regional leader of Startup America Partnership, the national effort dedicated to helping startups grow and jumpstart job creation throughout the country.

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