Sherwood Neiss

I am really happy to start the series on the Profile of Speakers lineup that we have for Startup Iceland 2014. The US Embassy in Reykjavik, has been a big supporter of Startup Iceland since we started in 2010, and I am happy to announce that the Embassy was able to organize a fantastic speaker for Startup Iceland 2014. Here is a bio of Sherwood Neiss. Without much ado here is Sherwood Neiss and Crowd Funding.

Sherwood Neiss, Principal of Crowdfund Capital Advisors, is an expert at building successful businesses. As a 3-time INC500 winner whose company won E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Sherwood understands the keys to entrepreneurial success from concept to company to sale.

As a serial entrepreneur and investor during the credit crunch, Sherwood saw a need for a change in outdated securities laws and did something about it—as a co-founding member of Startup Exemption, Sherwood co-authored the Crowdfunding Framework used in the JOBS Act that was signed into law by President Obama on April 5, 2012.

Within Crowdfund Capital Advisors (CCA), Sherwood works with clients ranging from governments and banks that are looking for ways to boost economic development in their countries to investment firms looking for access to increased deal flow that crowdfunding creates. Sherwood serves as an advisor to several crowdfunding platforms and crowdfunding technologies giving him a unique understanding and view of the industry and market. As an industry leader, Sherwood contributes to several publications including VentureBeat and TechCrunch. He additionally wrote Crowdfund Investing for Dummies through Wiley & Son’s.

Sherwood co-founded the Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA), serving as Governing Board Member and co-chair where he leads the fight to ensure investors are protected while entrepreneurs have access to the capital they need to start and grow promising companies.

An avid public speaker, Sherwood speaks at universities and seminars around the world discussing crowdfund investing, what it takes to be an entrepreneur and how to build winning companies. He also does a large amount of work presenting to government bodies, speaking in front of the U.S. Congress, leading SEC and FINRA meetings, as well as, addressing foreign governments—testifying about how they can bring economic benefits to their citizenry through implementing their Crowdfund Investment Framework.

Sherwood started his post-MBA career on Wall Street and moved to Silicon Valley where he completed personal and financial goals in his late 20’s he hoped to obtain in his 30’s. Wondering what to do next and also left struggling with a debilitating family dilemma, he used his entrepreneurial drive to help turn his family adversity into a multi-million dollar company that today is helping millions of sick children, animals and adults get better by being more compliant with their medicines.

As the co-founder of FLAVORx (www.flavorx.com), Sherwood structured an approach and built a business model that threw off millions of dollars in cash and while growing the business from one pharmacy to over 80% of the pharmacies in the United States. He raised millions of dollars in capital and saw the culmination of his endeavors with the sale of the company in 2007.

When not working, Sherwood is an avid traveler. He lived in Japan for a year and post-sale of FLAVORx took his second backpacking trip around the world. In addition to speaking at universities and businesses around the country he invests in real estate in the U.S. and Brazil, is part of a private equity group in Los Angeles, is working on a clean tech project in Puerto Rico and is involved with several other start-up ventures.

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