Regulatory review is one of four key recommendations made Wednesday by the National Venture Capital Association at its annual meeting in Boston. In Part 2 of The Deal's Behind the Money video conversation with NVCA president Mark Heesen, we talk about the regulatory climate for VC.
"The last decade has been characterized by a series of broad sweeping regulations aimed at curbing serious abuses within the financial system but fraught with unintended consequences for small prepublic and public companies," says Heesen, pointing to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the Global Settlement to Regulation Fair Disclosure of 2000 as the chief culprits.
"The NVCA strongly supports regulation and protecting investors where necessary but does not support a 'one-size-fits-all' regulatory approach," Heesen says.
After months of soliciting input from leaders in all aspects of technology dealmaking, the NVCA outlined remedies for addressing the capital markets crisis for U.S. venture-backed companies. The proposals ask venture capitalists, investment banks, accounting firms, law firms, stock exchanges and the federal government to consider a variety of steps, including new ways to link buyers and sellers of private company stock, using a wider variety of service providers including investment banks and accounting firms, and pushing for tax policies that could boost VC investment. (Pipeline subscribers can learn more about the NVCA's recommendations here.)
Click here for Part 1 of our video conversation with Heesen, when he talks about the lack of exits for venture-backed companies. Watch Part 2 of the video below or download it on iTunes. - Mary Kathleen Flynn
