Shameless plug here - I'm Todd Crosland, one of the co-founders of http://seedequity.com, and we are deeply interested in solving these information asymmetry issues, risks, and cap table problems mentioned here. We'd be very interested in getting feedback from any of you about our process and are always seeking better ways to reduce these risks.
We are a registered broker-dealer with the SEC, which means that we have extremely high compliance requirements for advertising, employee licensing, bad-actor background checks, data security, audits, and more. We try to go the extra mile with our background checks, rejecting founders and investors with backgrounds with any hint of questionable behavior, even if they haven't broken any securities laws. Our regulations require us to share disclosure documents, which describe the risks faced by each company, allowing investors to have a balanced view of each offering.
From what I can tell spending time in Silicon Valley over the years, it appears that some of the discouraging wealth disparity there exists because a select group of employees and investors has had access to equity in great companies, while the rest of the population is shut out. With the SEC's carefully crafted protections in place for non-accredited investors, hopefully more small-time investors will have access to high quality, medium to pre-IPO -sized companies. If such companies are willing to accept many non-accredited investors in Reg A+ offerings, they will need a regulated entity, like a broker-dealer, to help them.
In any case, I'd be grateful to hear your feedback. You can reach me at crosland at seedequity dot com.