AXess digitizes deal flow

AXess, a New York-based financial startup, this fall plans to launch a private, broker-neutral electronic marketplace that lets individual angel investors fund private businesses with a social or environmental bent.

Dubbed AXess Alternative Trading System (ATS), it will focus on environmental and socially-focused investments and include private-placement offerings and secondary trading of restricted and illiquid securities.

Only accredited investors are allowed to use the secure platform site, and AXess says it complies with all regulations to ensure that only qualified investors can participate in private-placement offerings or other secondary market transactions.

Jon Bonnano, President of Principle Power and an angel investor with the Keiretsu Forum, says proving investors are accredited could be a challenge for the nascent project. “It is hard to prove one’s accredited nature without some serious disclosure, which could kill the registration process,” Bonnano says.

Michael Van Patten, CEO and founder of AXess, says the difficulty of joining the exclusive site is mitigated by the opportunities it offers for those who join. “If you’re an investor, from a primary investment perspective, if you can come to one platform and use it as one of your sources for finding opportunities, it’s so much more efficient,” Van Patten says. “The more deal flow you can see, the better.”