Verifying Entities
Accreditation Process
Verifying Entities
Individuals investing through an owned entity can get accreditation status for the entity through a few methods. Some methods require more documents than others, and Accredd takes care to encrypt all documents uploaded to our platform. In fact, we use bank-level security to store files on our servers.
Note that these methods are set forth by the SEC and the IRS, so we follow a strict process to stay compliant with regulations. Below are the common methods entities (and their owners) will be evaluated against, in order of easiest to most time consuming for the entity and its owners.
Assets
An entity is considered an accredited investor if it has proof of assets in excess of $5,000,000. The owner of the entity will need to upload proof of entity ownership along with documents revealing the entity’s assets. We review these documents to calculate the total assets owned and/or controlled by the entity.
Certified Entity
SEC and IRS guidelines enable us to verify an entity as an accredited investor if the entity is a registered bank, broker-dealer, or insurance company. The individual uploading documents on behalf of the entity must show proof of ownership, and registered documents proving the entity to be one of the three entity types above.
CPA Letter
We can review CPA letters that state the entity’s name and accreditation status. The letter must be no older than 90 days and written by one of the following licensed professional: CPA, Attorney, Broker-Dealer. We perform a double layer verification by validating the license of the professional.
Individual Accreditation
When all equity owners of an entity are individually accredited, the entity itself is considered an accredited investor. The entity will need to list all of its equity owners and each of those owners must go through a verification process with us (or each of the equity owners can submit a CPA letter stating their individual accreditation status).