Safe driving tech startup ITFT, which stands for Innovative Technology for Transportation, is the first North Carolina company to launch a crowdfunding campaign since the federal rules (Regulation Crowdfunding) under Title III of the JOBSs Act went into effect last May.

According to a press release issued by Smith Anderson*, the lawyers that helped guide the Davidson company to start the campaign, ITFT is the first NC company to launch a Title III Regulation Crowdfunding campaign. 

According to its campaign site, the ITFT system “Safe Driving System” is:

  • Designed to be installed in any car manufactured after 1996
  • Affordable at an expected $25/month cost
  • Seamlessly integrates with the vehicle’s CANBUS [Controller Area Network (CAN bus) is a vehicle bus standard designed to allow microcontrollers and devices to communicate with each other in applications without a host computer – Wikipedia] system to harness the ability to prevent speeding
  • Allows parents to either set up notifications or actions for their teenage drivers
  • Users have the ability to select the apps they want to use while driving, and eliminate the rest

ITFT chose the website Start Engine for the campaign.

[CAMPAIGN: See details at: https://www.startengine.com/startup/itft ]

ITFT already has received a U.S. patent for its technology. The company intends to use funds raised for further product development and testing of prototypes. A pilot test also is planned.

Smith Anderson attorneys Benji Jones, who was a key advocate for the passage of the North Carolina crowdfunding bill known as the NC PACES Act, and Alex Bowling assisted ITFT through the complex process.

“Encapsulated in a nearly 700 page adopting release, the Regulation Crowdfunding rules and regulations can seem quite complex and daunting to an uninitiated small business,” Jones said in a statement. “In addition to assisting ITFT in planning for, and establishing the terms of, its crowdfunding offering, we guided them in designing rule-compliant offering materials to be filed with the SEC and included on the StartEngine platform.” 

The law enables companies to raise as much as $1 million from what are called “retail investors,” i.e. people who do not qualify as “accredited investors” based on high standards of net worth through a variety of emerging crowdfunding-focused websites.

North Carolina’s legislation came several years after the SEC began the approval process for federal standards outlining crowdfunding as an alternative to other means of raising money such as from venture capital firms.

“As the first firm to have the opportunity to work on such a deal in this State, we are very excited to help ITFT tap into the ‘crowd’ to raise the capital it needs to achieve its business objectives by issuing securities under Title III of the JOBS Act and Regulation Crowdfunding,” Bowling said.

*: All quotations are derived from Smith Anderson press release dated January 11, 2017.