1st Step - Reading Key Sections of Web Site:

After reading the sections below:

Grow Your Future with CrowdSprout,
CrowdSprout’s Role as a Fundraising Tool,
As an Investment: Food is a Great Target; and
For the Potential CrowdSprout Investor

and you’re interested in potentially investing and would like to see the companies listed as investment candidates, go to the “I’m Ready to Register” button.

2nd Step - The CrowdSprout Registration Process:

It has two aspects.

• Provide the most basic of personal information to prove you are a Colorado resident; and
• Sign our Crowd Investor Terms of Use Agreement. The purpose of this Agreement is very simple. It simply states that:
  • You have read the four key sections of the CrowdSprout™ web site,
  • You are a Colorado resident
  • You fully understand that CrowdSprout™ is only a “connector” or “Intermediary” and that CrowdSprout™ does not provide any assurances or investment advice regarding any specific company listed on its site;
  • You fully understand that each Company listed on the CrowdSprout™ site has written their own Business Plan and Investment Offering Document; that
  • You must do your own research and you decide if and how much you will invest and you are taking the risk and that you will get the reward; and finally that
  • You understand that the investments you make in the local companies listed on the CrowdSprout™ site should be considered longer term investments not short term investments

3rd Step: Introduction to Listed Companies:

With the registration process done, you are now ready to be introduced to and can now review the Investment Offering Documents currently listed on the CrowdSprout™ site, the Listed Companies.

Again, you must do your own research and you decide if and how much you will invest and you are taking the risk and that you will get the reward.

4th Step: Review the Listed Company’s Offering Document:

As stated earlier, each local company has listed its own “Investment Offering Document”. This Investment Offering Document will include:

• The Business Plan of the company to include its history, management, products, revenues, sales projections and other items that the company feels will help the Crowd Investor make a good investment decision. This Business Plan will also disclose the “Minimum Investment” needed to execute the next level of their Business Plan, plus the “Maximum Investment” they will accept at this time. This will be discussed further below in the 6th Step;
• The Investor Agreement, which will be discussed further in the 5th Step; and the
• The Disclosure of Risk Document which is customary for even even the most sophisticated investors and the form of which is regulated required by the State of Colorado Division of Securities.

5th Step: Sign Investor Agreement between Crowd Investor and Listed Company:

If you find a company that you are interested in and you have decided how much you want to invest, you go to the next step – entering into the Listed Company’s Investor Agreement with the target company.

In addition to providing their respective Investment Offering Document, each company listed on the CrowdSprout™ site must also provide its own “Investor Agreement” which will be just between the individual Crowd Investor and the Listed Company. This Investor Agreement will spell out all of the details of the financial deal between you, the Crowd Investor and the Listed Company.

Remember, each Colorado Resident can invest up to $5,000 per company per 12 month period.

You will type into the Listed Company’s Investor Agreement how much you intend to invest and the Investor Agreement will display how many shares of the company you will receive and the other details of what other consideration you may get. Sometimes, in addition to your owning equity of the Listed Company, the Listed Companies may offer their Crowd Investors discounts on the products or a sharing of profits or some other forms of benefits. Once you have agreed to that “Deal” and signed the Listed Company’s Investor Agreement, you are ready for the 6th and final step, making the actual investment.

But first, let’s expand on the important topic of: “Minimum Amount” and the “Maximum Amount” of investments for any single deal.

Before you make the actual investment and as we discussed up in item a. of the 4th Step - you much first understand that each of the Investment Offering Documents provided by the individual Listed Companies will state and disclose:

(a) their Business Strategy; and

(b) the “Minimum Amount” and “Maximum Amount” of investments of just how much investment dollars each company needs to raise to accomplish their Business Strategy.

Here is the importance of these two things.

For example, if the company needs to raise a Minimum Amount of $20,000 to make their Business Plan work, but also will only accept a Maximum Amount of $30,000, those amounts will likely come from accumulating and combining the investments several dozen individual Crowd Investors over several weeks of time.

In addition to serving as the “Connector” or the “Intermediary” introducing you to the local companies, the CrowdSprout™ also serves as the “Holding Site” as CrowdSprout™ accumulates the dozens of smaller investments from dozens of individual Crowd Investors until the “Minimum Investment” for each company is reached. This could take a few days or a few weeks.

During that time, CrowdSprout™ uses US Bank as the “Holding Site” to hold these funds in trust for both the Crowd Investor and the Listed Company.

US Bank is a very secure place to hold your funds before they are released to the Listed Company. US Bank is the 5th largest bank in the US with revenue over $23 Billion in 2021, has assets of over $573 Billion and a market value of over $62 Billion.

This “Holding Site” will be an account in CrowdSprout’s name and used only to hold Crowd Investor funds before they are released to the Listed Company.

For the protection of the Crowd Investor, CrowdSprout™ will not give the Listed Company any of the Crowd Investors’ money until CrowdSprout™ has accumulated the “Minimum Amount” – in this example, $20,000. Then the Minimum Amount of $20,000 will be released from CrowdSprout™ to the Listed Company and CrowdSprout™ will then announce this release of funds to all the Crowd Investors and the State of Colorado Division of Securities.

Additionally, once the Maximum Amount of $30,000 is reached, CrowdSprout™ will no longer accept any further investments in that company for this particular investment raise.

Now you’re really ready for the 6th and final Step.

6th Step Making the Actual Investment:

In Step 2, above, you established your individual Crowd Investor position within the CrowdSprout™ web site, allowing you permission to “view all the Listed Companies”.

Now you are ready to create your individual Stripe Account, which is totally separate from your CrowdSprout™ account.

This will also be realivly easy. The CrowdSprout web site uses the Stripe Payment Processing Platform for the internet to process the actual payment from you bank / credit or debit card. Millions of companies of all sizes—from startups to Fortune 500s—use Stripe’s software and APIs to accept payments, send payouts, and manage their businesses online.

Do your own research about Stripe.

This is to provide our Crowd Investors the utmost in security for their online investment transactions with CrowdSprout.