Debt Share of U.S. Crowdfunding Offerings

## What this measures

Offerings whose security type on Form C is "Debt", divided by all Form C offerings launched in the quarter, as a percent.

## Why it matters

Debt crowdfunding is mostly revenue-generating small businesses (restaurants, breweries, real estate) borrowing from customers and neighbours; equity and SAFE offerings are mostly startups. The mix shows which kind of company is using the crowd.

## How to read it

A higher share means more of the activity is small-business lending rather than startup equity. Read it with the equity share (crowdfunding.us.equity_share.quarterly); the rest are SAFEs, convertible notes and other instruments reported as "Other".

## What it does not say

It measures offerings launched and money sought, not money raised: Form C has no structured field for the amount finally sold, and many offerings close below their maximum or fail to reach their target. The SEC raised the Regulation Crowdfunding limit from $1.07 million to $5 million a year from 15 March 2021, so maximum amounts before and after that date are not like for like. Values are as filed and unaudited; the SEC says it cannot guarantee the accuracy of the data sets. Form C carries no industry code, so there is no industry split.

## How it's built

Palanor counts original Form C offering statements (form type "C") by the date they were filed. Amendments (C/A), progress updates (C-U), annual reports (C-AR), terminations (C-TR) and withdrawals are not counted, so each offering counts once, in the quarter it was launched. Dollar amounts are the target and maximum the issuer states on that first filing; a later amendment that raises the maximum does not change them. Quarters start in 2016 Q3, the first full quarter after Regulation Crowdfunding opened on 16 May 2016. A quarter appears once the SEC has posted its file. The share is debt offerings divided by all offerings in the quarter.

## Source

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Division of Economic and Risk Analysis, Crowdfunding Offerings Data Sets (sec.gov/data-research/sec-markets-data/crowdfunding-offerings-data-sets): quarterly files extracted from every Form C filed on EDGAR, as filed. Palanor loads each quarter's file when the SEC posts it, a few days after the quarter ends. Public domain: "Information presented on sec.gov is considered public information and may be copied or further distributed by users of the web site without the SEC's permission" (SEC website dissemination policy, sec.gov/about/privacy-information).