If you give the friend the money as a gift, you have nothing to do with it, right? if you give it to him as a loan to inflate his assets and don't disclose that then you are committing a Federal crime.
replyI didn't give any money in that hypothetical. Rather, I convinced a lot of other people to give them the loan. That is, largely, exactly what fundraising is. You convince other people to give money to someone or something.
replyIf people are regularly doing this at my request, and it is constantly going to someone that just burns the money, how are people still taking my requests?
That's soliciting, which is regulated at least for soliciting non-accredited investors.
replyYes. That doesn't change my question, here. You can arrange to bootstrap another company. It could go bust in a way that you are not on the hook for any money, but you should be on the hook for the things you did. That is the entirety of my point.
replyThe hypotheticals being pushed on this thread have a foregone conclusion that the arranging party is completely free of any hit.