About Us

Sherwood Neiss co-authored the Crowdfunding Exemption Framework, which became the basis for Title III of the JOBS Act, legalizing investment crowdfunding in the United States. He led lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill, testified before U.S. House and Senate panels, and was invited to the White House signing ceremony with President Obama. He also worked closely with the SEC to shape the rules that now govern the industry.

Since then, he has helped launch and scale what is now a $3B+ regulated market, transforming how early-stage capital is raised and invested. He architected CCLEAR, the only proprietary, 100% complete dataset that tracks daily Reg CF transactions across every regulated platform, covering 10,000+ offerings from 8,500+ private companies.

He is a General Partner at D3VC, a venture firm deploying capital into the strongest Reg CF issuers using proprietary insights from CCLEAR. He co-authored Crowdfund Investing for Dummies (Wiley) and lead authored World Bank and IDB reports on crowdfunding ecosystems.

Recognition includes the Crowdfunding Visionary Award, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Inc. 500 (3x), and being named among the most influential voices in crowdfunding by Forbes and VentureBeat.

Douglas S. Ellenoff is a co-founder and principal at GUARDD. He is a member of Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP since its founding in 1992, is a corporate and securities attorney with a focus on business transactions and corporate financings.

The Firm, which consists of nearly 80 lawyers, has established itself as a leader in various capital market initiatives, such as Crowdfunding, SPACs, PIPEs and Registered Direct offerings. He is also Chairman and Co-Founder of iDisclose, an online application for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

During his career, he has represented numerous entrepreneurs, broker-dealers, investor groups and many corporations involved in the capital formation process. In the last few years alone, he has been involved at various stages in numerous registered public offerings, including 100 financings and, with other members of his firm, over 500 private placements into public companies, 125 registered blind pool offerings (commonly referred to as "SPACs") and 25 sizable SPACquisitions.

With respect to Crowdfunding, he is actively engaged with clients including funding portals, broker-dealers, technology solution providers, software developers, investors and entrepreneurs.

Jim Dowd is a co-founder and principal at GUARDD. He is also the Founder and CEO of North Capital Private Securities (NCPS), the leading broker-dealer for online funding platforms; North Capital Investment Technology (NCIT), which provides marketplace technology and services for online capital formation; and North Capital Inc., a registered investment advisor.

Prior to launching North Capital in 2008, Mr. Dowd was a Senior Managing Director and Head of the Hedge Fund Advisory and Fund of Funds business at Bear Stearns & Company.

Before Bear, Mr. Dowd was a portfolio manager for eight years, focusing on Japanese convertible bond and options arbitrage strategies. He previously spent nine years with Bankers Trust in New York, London and Tokyo, where he was Managing Director and Head of Derivatives Trading for Asia and a Partner of Bankers Trust.

Mr. Dowd began his career with Samuel Montagu Capital Markets Inc., a boutique investment bank, in New York.