Couragent using Launchpad to raise capital

BOULDER – Mobile-scanner manufacturing company Couragent Inc. wants to raise $350,000 online using a crowdfunding technology platform created by Funding Launchpad.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed between Boulder-based Vim Funding Inc., which uses the trade name Funding Launchpad, and Fort Collins-based Couragent.

Couragent plans to solicit consumer investors in five states – Colorado, Illinois, New York, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

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In those states, the company has filed stock registration documents that use the current Small Company Offering Registration, or SCOR, procedure required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC regulates the U.S. investment industry.

Couragent’s equity crowdfunding solicitation is believed to be the first of its kind in the country, according to the press statement. Couragent plans to use the money to market its Flip-Pal mobile scanner and to develop new digital imaging products, according to the press statement.

“With the time constraints associated with approaching individual angel and accredited investors, and with the legal and accounting costs of traditional registered offerings, we were compelled to try something new,” Gordon Nuttall, Couragent’s chief executive officer, said in the press statement. “It is now much faster and cost-effective to use the Internet for investment crowdfunding.”

Potential investors may visit www.courinvestor.com to download a prospectus for the Couragent offering.

The term “crowdfunding” has generated interest across the country in recent months after the new Jumpstart Our Business Startups, or JOBS, Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in April. The act formally goes into effect in 2013. It will allow startup company fundraising campaigns of up to $1 million each to be done online.

In the meantime, the existing SCOR rules allow companies to do similar fundraising activities online, David Milliken, chief marketing officer of Funding Launchpad, said in a statement.

“SCOR laws have been on the books for over 20 years, but remain complicated,” Milliken said. “With the finalization of the rulemaking process under the JOBS Act, this funding process and the opportunities for thousands of entrepreneurs and consumer investors will become easier and nationally streamlined next year.”

Vim Funding also has two food companies as clients – Quimper Mercantile Co. in Port Townsend, Washington, a community owned grocery/mercantile store, and Workers Diner in New York City, which will be a worker-owned restaurant, the company has said.