The bill allowed for the rise of a new kind of online investment platform, in which startups can host equity crowdfunding campaigns offering investors a percentage of ownership. With the Obama administrationвЂ™s 2016 passage of Title III of the JOBS Act, known as the Regulation Crowdfunding provision, nonaccredited investors could start making online investments at historically low minimum buy-ins for the first time ever. Elsewhere, legislation has opened up new possibilities.

For one, everyday people have increasingly gotten into the game through mobile-friendly, commission-free online platforms like Robinhood and Public. They were just never funded-they had to fund themselves.вЂ™вЂќДЄ decade later, racial prejudice remains, but the range of funding options available to business owners has opened up in new and surprising ways-and so has the world of finance and investment. вЂњI had to politely say, вЂI canвЂ™t unzip myself and become a white woman or a white man. вЂњ, вЂWeвЂ™ve never seen a brand that looks like you,вЂ™вЂќ recalls Wilson, who is Black. The meeting was unsuccessful-and to make matters worse, Wilson received some rather unhelpful feedback from one of the women sitting across the table from her. Roughly 10 years ago, interior designer and entrepreneur Robin Wilson walked into a meeting with a seed capital organization geared toward women and pitched her home goods business, A Blue Egg Corporation, in the hopes of receiving funding for the growing brand.

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