Empowering Smes

Hello, I'm Peter Towers, Managing Director of ESS Small Business.  Welcome to Survival Hints for Small Business.   There are tremendous opportunities for investors under the Early Stage Innovation Company legislation.   What is an Early Stage Innovation Company?  This is a new corporate structure that the Australian government legislated for in May 2016 and commenced operations from 1st July 2016.  The legislation is targeted at companies that are developing new products, processes or services.  In the main the companies have to be under three years of age, but in some circumstances the companies could be under six of age.   There are three tests with which the companies have to comply.  They have to pass two of these three tests.   The first test is the "Provisional Test" (that's the name we've given it) because it looks at the age of the company, and whether it's income is under $200,000 in the previous income year, not including any grant income from the Accelerating Commercialisation Grant. The company's