Skvarla says he wants to push for crowd funding legislation

"We have hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs in this state, and crowd-funding is a mechanism by which small entrepreneurs can go raise $1 million to $2 million easily without all of the bureaucratic morass of traditional securities laws," Commerce Secretary John Skvarla said shortly after attending an economic forecast forum put on Monday by the North Carolina Chamber and North Carolina Bankers Association. 

Such systems, he said, typically work by allowing smaller investors to put $1,000 a piece into a project without the formalities normally required with stock transactions.

Rep. Tom Murry, R-Wake, the bill's primary proponent, did not win reelection in November. 

Skvarla said crowd-funding would allow small investors to help from home-grown ventures much more quickly. The biggest problems for most entrepreneurs, he said, is access to the capital needed either to start up or begin work on a new project in earnest. 

"This crowd-funding is something we need to have as a standalone bill to get signed early in the session. Let's unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of everybody who is out there wanting to start everything from a sporting goods company to a biotech company," Skvarla said. 

Lawmakers return to work Jan. 14 for one day and then begin the bulk of their legislative session two weeks later.