Senate Passes Crowdfunding Bill, Bounces It Back To House

The U.S. Senate on Thursday afternoon voted overwhelmingly to pass an amended version of the so-called JOBS Act, a bill designed to ease regulations on private companies to allow startup companies to solicit investments from people over the Internet using crowding websites like Kickstarter. The amended version of the Senate bill, though, imposes some additional restrictions that a House version of the bill, passed overwhelmingly last week, didn’t feature, such as forcing crowdfunding websites to make sure that their early investors are educated investors and to do background checks on companies soliciting investments. Now the amended JOBS Act heads back to the House for another vote. President Obama has said he’ll sign the bill.